Renegade
by attackamazon
Summary: Everyone knows that the Dragonborn is supposed to be a great hero. But what if the person who has been given the power to save the world is not as heroic as her legend would suggest? And what will happen to Skyrim when her own ambitions become wrapped up in her quest? A Skyrim novelization from an anti-hero perspective.
1. Prologue

_This is my first proper attempt at a complete Skyrim novelization. I wanted to play with a different type of Dragonborn than in my last piece and get out of my comfort zone of Lawful Good "justice and honor" type characters, so what better to write than a "selfish bastard" type career criminal? Right now, I foresee this taking in the main quest line, the Thieves' Guild quests, and the Civil War quests for sure, with a possibility of the Dark Brotherhood creeping in there as well. I have a few romance interests in mind, but I want to see how the character develops organically, so we'll all just have to be surprised._

_I went ahead and publish two chapters together to kickstart the story. This first chapter is a prologue, the action starts properly in the second. I've seen the Skyrim opening sequence so many times by now that I know everyone else must be dreadfully bored with it as well. So, I thought this might be an interesting way to give some context to the character and _not_ start with Helgen, while still staying true to the game storyline. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for reading!_

* * *

The Big People's legs came and went across the rickety timbers of the downstairs room accompanied by the murmur of conversation from above. The swish of the women's dark skirts and the heavy clomping of the men's boots made Brim's hiding place underneath the family table seem safer by comparison. She liked hiding anyway. Papa said she was a natural, and that was why he let her come with him sometimes when he and Quinn were going out to work. Not even Victorine or Evylie got to do that and they were older. Brim was the best hider and the best watcher and one day, when she was big enough, Papa would let her help him with the real jobs just like Quinn. When he had left a few days ago, she had pushed herself up on her tiptoes for whole minutes, so that maybe he would think she was finally big enough, but he had just tousled her hair and told her "next time". The disappointment was leavened slightly by the prospect that he would bring her a present when he came home. He always brought something when he had to be gone for a few days, a sweet or a trinket of some kind, and he had been gone for a whole week now.

She heard a sound from nearby and turned to see her little brother crouching wide-eyed in the corner of the room behind one of the chairs, his arms wrapped around his knees. Tobie was only five years old and, ever since Mama had gone, he had taken to crying in the presence of strangers. Strangers had come to take Mama away and she had never come back, so who knew what they might take next? But the Big People weren't paying attention and Brim didn't want Tobie to cry. If he started crying, Victorine would be cross and that usually meant that Brim would be scolded. Victorine could always find something to scold about. Besides, Papa had told her that she had to take care of the family for him while he was away. So, because the responsibilities of an eight-year old protectress were never done, she motioned Tobie over and, sniffling, he crawled under the table and bellied up next to her. She patted him on the back, like she had seen Mama do. A very adult gesture, she felt with no small amount of pride.

"Don't worry," she told him, comfortingly, as he turned a miserable gaze up at her. "Can't see under here, can they?"

"I want Mama," Tobie whimpered, uncertainly. Victorine had already explain to him, to Brim as well, that Mama wasn't coming back and that they would all just have to cope with it and go on. She hadn't said where Mama had gone, but Brim knew. She had been there, forgotten and obscured in the space between the corner and the old dresser upstairs, when little Mags had been born and she had heard it all. Mama had died, just like the twin babies that had been born when Brim was Tobie's age. Brim thought that Mama was probably wherever the twins were by now, but she knew telling Tobie that would only make him cry more.

"Mama's not here," she whispered, quickly, and then fished a misshapen sweet of nuts and crystalized honey out of her dress pocket. Victorine had swatted her hand and told her they were for the company, not for her, but Victorine did not have eyes on the back of head and so Brim had filched a few when her eldest sister was looking the other way. She handed one to Tobie and he put it in his mouth, almost as a second thought, crunching the sticky sweet between his teeth. At least it kept him quiet.

"I just don't know what we're going to do," a voice said peevishly overhead. Victorine's voice, and Brim nearly held her breath in an effort to stay quiet and not draw attention to herself. "It was bad enough with Mother, leaving the babe behind and all, but now…"

Brim made a face. Ever since Victorine had gotten married, she had started saying "Mother" and "Father" instead of "Mama" and "Papa" and talking fancy like her shopkeeper husband. She had always been fussy, always the bossy big sister, but now she was a regular plague of uppity manners and tidiness.

"We'll manage," Evylie's voice soothed, quietly. She had always been the favorite in the family, and it was not hard to see why. Quinn was above such things, being the eldest of the brood, and between Victorine's primness, Brim's rambunctiousness , Tobie's oversensitive nature, and little Mags, whom no one had even had time to get acquainted with yet, Evylie would have been everyone's favorite by default alone.

"Lucian needs me back at the store, and with the baby on the way and poor little Magrathe to look after now…and you with the engagement…"

"Ivar's a good man. He won't mind if I have to follow him up later."

"That's what he says, but you know how men are," Victorine sniffed, and then continued in a quieter tone, "Honestly, Evyline, you should just marry him and get out of this house while you still can. Take it from me. I'm sorry for Father and Quinn, but it was bound to happen sooner or later and this place is a middenheap. Even if you took over Mother's work, what kind of life is that?"

Brim's ears perked up at that. What had happened to Papa and Quinn? What was bound to happen sooner or later?

"I'll talk to him. We can take Brim and Tobie with us when we leave. Do them some good to be out of the city for once."

"Tobias maybe, but Brim…honestly, I don't know what we're going to do with her."

"Give her a strong hiding, if you take my suggestion," a male voice, Victorine's husband Lucian, quipped as he walked up to the table. His breeches were soft and clean and stylish, a stark difference from the other clothing around the room. Brim wrinkled her nose. She had never liked him. From the flowery scent he wore, like a woman, to the condescending way he talked to everyone in the family, Brim knew he was an Uppish Fob. That's what Papa called people like Victorine's Lucian, and Papa didn't like him either. He did, however, have money and Brim found herself, opportunistically, near eye level with his belt purse.

"She's just spirited," Eyvlie said, kindly. "Like Mama was."

Brim licked her lips and moved as silently as she could up onto her knees, putting a finger over her mouth and winking at Tobie. He watched her wide-eyed, as her deft fingers twitched at the leather lacings of pouch, just like Quinn had showed her. She would keep it and show it to him when he and Papa got home and then maybe they would realize that she was definitely big enough now to go with them next time.

"Well, she might have gotten the spirit from Mother, but the rest she got from Father and if something isn't done she's going to wind up just the same. Or worse."

As Brim tugged carefully on the purse strings, she glanced around quickly to make sure no one was looking and her eyes landed on Uncle Renald, who was sitting nearby with a mug of ale in hand. He was not really Papa's brother, he just worked closely with Papa, but all of the Stroud children had always been told to call him 'uncle' and he was avuncular enough on his regular visits to the house, making the usual remarks about how big they were all getting and bringing the occasional small gifts. He winked at her and leaned back to watch, and Brim grinned back, all the more determined.

"Discipline is what those youngsters need," Lucian pontificated. "It's almost a mercy, I suppose that Magrathe won't have to grow up in that environment. Tobias is really too young to have been influenced seriously, I have no doubt he'll straighten out with some proper schooling and a decent home. The girl, though. Well, I'll not have that kind of behavior in my house."

The purse dropped free and Brim caught it gleefully just in time to keep the coins inside from making a sound. She scurried back under the table and pawed it open, shaking out a small handful of gold septim. She handed one down to Tobie, who clutched it and stared at it with an O-shaped expression as if it were a fortune. You could buy a sweet roll, a proper one from the fancy bakery, for that much. Brim stuffed the coins into the pocket of her dress and wadded up the soft leather purse looking for some place to put it where no one would find it if Lucian suddenly realized it was gone. She handed it to Tobie and then leaned down next to his ear, pointing to the space underneath the shabby end table in the corner.

"Go put this under there."

"Why?" he asked suspiciously, and she grinned, flashing another coin at him.

"'Cause I'll take you down to the bakers and buy you a sweet roll tomorrow if you do."

He gaped at her as if unable to believe he could be so lucky and took the pouch, crawling out from under the table and nearly trotting over to the corner she had indicated.

"Tobie, what have you got there?" Brim heard Evylie's say above her and the Big People moved away from the table over to her brother. Cursing mentally, Brim looked around her for a quick escape. This was not going to be pretty.

"That's my pouch!" Lucian exclaimed, outraged. Tobie's eyes locked on Brim's, and there was a moment where she saw them widen and fill with tears before he sat down in the floor and began to wail. Brim took the opportunity to scramble out from underneath the table on the other side and head for the door, darting behind the backs of several portly relations. She would have made it, too, if Victorine had not noticed her at that moment.

"Brimwithe Stroud, did you…"

"Just takin' the nipper out for a bit of air, if'n you don't mind," Uncle Renald said, calmly, appearing beside the door at that moment. Brim looked at Victorine with her best blank "_Who me?"_ stare and then reached up to put her small hand in the old Breton's rough fist and nodded. Victorine narrowed her eyes suspiciously at them, and then shook her head and turned back to deal with the bawling Tobie. Gratefully, Brim stepped outside and down the stone steps into the dingy street. In the distance, you could see the lights of the immense White-Gold Tower blotting out the stars even this late at night, but the narrow alleys and dog-trots of the Waterfront District itself were dark and she could smell the briny, rotten smell of the wharf wafting up through the streets from the water. It was the smell she would always, even as an adult, associate with home.

"Let's take a walk, you and me." Uncle Renald said, benevolently. Brim took her hand back, because, even though she liked Uncle Renald, that was a privilege she normally only reserved for Papa.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it, love. What's a good uncle for if he don't step in when you're in a pinch, eh?" he said, smiling. Once they were far enough down from the house, he stopped and squatted down until he was at eye level with her. He was older than Papa and the crow's foot wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and cheeks creased as he gave her an appraising look. "Now, this is going to be hard on you, lass, but I want you to think of it as an opportunity, too, eh?"

Brim had no idea what he was talking about, but Papa had told her she must always be polite to Uncle Renald and listen to what he said, so she waited.

"Your Papa and Quinn…well, they ain't coming back. They had a spot of bad luck and the guards got 'em. They've been…ah…turned off, so to speak. Your big sisters in there, they mean well enough trying to spare you and little Tobie the details. But you're a proper grown up girl now and your Papa always said you was smart and can be told these things. Thought you should know."

For a moment, Brim did not understand what he was saying and then it hit her. Papa and Quinn weren't coming back. Just like Mama wasn't coming back. That meant that Papa and Quinn were dead. Her eyes filled with tears and Uncle Renald reached out and hugged her to him, burying her face in his faded, dingy shirt.

"It's alright, love, cry if you want." he said. After a few minutes of sobbing, he drew back a little bit and stroked her dark hair out of her face, almost paternally. "There now. Let's dry that face. Your Papa thought the world of you, he wouldn't have wanted you to take on so on his account."

"Is Victorine going to stay with us now?" she sniffled. After Mama had died, Victorine had moved back in temporarily to take care of the baby and help out, but she would have gone home with Lucian in a few weeks.

"Your big sister's got her own family to look after. I reckon she'll take little Mags when she goes. And Evylie's all set to go up to Nord country with her soldier. I expect they'll take little Tobie."

"What about me?"

"Well, you've got me, ain't you?" he said, and chucked her on the chin. "Pinching coin at a wake. You've got Family written all over you and just about old enough to do proper work, too. Don't you worry, lass, Uncle Renald'll take care of you. Now, let's see your spoils."

She pulled the coins out of her pocket and displayed them in her hand. There were eight of them, minus the one she had given to Tobie.

"Not bad for a first haul," he said, "That's a day's wage just about for the boys on the piers."

He picked up one and held it up, glinting.

"Usually the Guild's pretty choosy about who we let in. But seeing as how your Papa was Family and all…" he pocketed the coin, and grinned a crooked-toothed smile at her, "Your first dues. I'll have a chat with your sisters in the morning and then we'll get you started training up. Do your Papa proud."

Brim smiled and, when she left the house a few days later with Uncle Renold, after enduring one last scolding from Victorine, tearful hugs from Evylie and Tobie, and kissing baby Mags goodbye, she was proud that she only looked back once, and then just a peek. Papa would want her to be a good girl and not cry, and Uncle Renold had promised to teach her to read so that she could write to Evylie and Tobie after they left. Big People didn't cry, and she was a proper grown-up now, had earned her own gold and paid dues to the Guild and everything. And there was another Family waiting on her. One day, she promised herself, as only a child can, she would not only be the best at hiding and watching, she would be the best at everything. Better than Papa or Quinn or even Uncle Renald. And no one would ever turn her off like they had Papa.


	2. CHAPTER 1: Criminal

_The obligatory Helgen scenes. Some of the scripted dialogue is included, but this is probably one of the few chapters I plan on writing where I wanted to follow the game scenes relatively closely. Brim seems like the type of protagonist to throw a wrench into neatly scripted situations, so I doubt it will be a regular occurrence that I use a lot of exact game dialogue._

_If you would like to leave concrit, for this chapter I would really be interested in whether you think Brim's dialect is overdone. I usually write educated characters, so I've been playing with ways to write an uneducated, lower class type character without mangling the sentence structure too much and using a lot of apostrophes. Please, and thank you!_

* * *

"Almost there," Eagill called back, his voice fading out on the wind that growled through the snow-laden forest around them. By now, Brim knew better than to trust his optimism. They had been "almost there" twice already since they had descended from the high, narrow trail of Pale Pass, and still she could see nothing but trees and snow and the broad, retreating back of the big Nord in front of her. She had been staring at it for the last twelve hours, wondering how in the world she had let him talk her into this. At least Hammerfell would have been warm.

"When you say we're almost there," she called back, trying to tamp down her irritation for the moment, "where's 'there', exactly?"

Eagill stopped and turned, waiting for her to close the few extra steps between them, his breath crystalizing in the cold to frost the coarse blonde braid of his beard. The desperate, fugitive look in his eyes had abated some since they had fled Bruma, the grueling trek over the mountains having taken some of the immediacy out of the danger, but there was still an underlying edge of anxiety and agitation in his expression. From the beginning, Brim had carefully solidified her position as the alpha in their little professional partnership, but the last few days had shaken up the usual order of things and so she decided to postpone the harangue. Arguments of fault aside, it was in both of their best interests to work together. There would be time enough to address the foolishness that had gotten them into this mess once they had reached somewhere with food and a fire.

"There's a crossroads just north of the pass. Used to meet there when I was running sugar. Town called Helgen close by. Just have to find the road."

_All this and we're not even on the bloody road yet?_, Brim stopped herself from screeching at him. Maybe she would hit him after all. But, no, she kept her hands resolutely down and her expression neutral. Patience.

"I'll find it. I know where it is," he assured her, too confidently, so she knew he was bluffing. Brim thinned her lips and started to reply, but a noise caught her attention and she looked around quickly for the source.

"What's that?" she asked, as the crashing sound grew nearer. The only animals they had seen since they had come through the pass were a pair of snowshoe hares. Her hand went immediately to the long-knife at her belt. Bears? Wolves? Having spent her entire life in cities, Brim had not the slightest idea what could be lurking in the woods of Skyrim.

Before the big Nord could hazard a guess, the forms of two men, both sporting the oddest collection of armor Brim had ever seen, materialized from the underbrush, sprinting as fast as they could in her direction. Reflexively, she dropped into a defensive crouch and heard Eagill pull his sword close by, but the men bolted right past them without a hitch in their stride.

"Imperials! Run!" one called back, and it was then that Brim registered that both men's hands had been tied tightly together in front of them. Eagill looked down confused, but Brim grabbed the sleeve of his tunic and pulled him after her.

"Let's not wait and find out."

They ran at a perpendicular angle to where the other two had gone, Brim weaving through the trees and leaping fallen logs and rocks like a deer. Eagill panted along behind her, trying to keep up. He was no slouch when it came to legging it, but he was a big man and she was lighter and quicker by far. A deadly hiss shot past her and a section of bark exploded off of a tree in front of her as an arrow slammed into it. She dodged quickly to the side, feeling her blood pound through her veins with an extra kick of panic. Worse and worse. What else could possibly go wrong this week?

She needed a place to hide, but Brim knew nothing about the woods or the terrain and, once again, she cursed herself for letting Eagill convince her to come to this Divines-forsaken place. If they had still been in the city, escaping would have been a doddle. At that moment she heard another hiss behind her, followed by a yell of pain and the sound of a body hitting the ground hard.

"Brim!" Eagill cried out after her, his voice tinged with fear and agony, but she did not slow down. If she went back for him, they would both be killed and what was the point in that? _Sorry, old chum_, she thought and redoubled her pace. Up ahead, she could see the forest floor beginning to slope down into a creek hollow, the terrain falling in uneven terraces of broken stone. Thinking quickly, she jumped down at the first ledge and dropped onto her belly, wedging her body up underneath a shallow overhang among the roots and stones. It was a tight fit, but it was the best cover she could find.

In the distance, she heard more crunching of snow and plant matter, then a furious yell and the brief crash of steel before the forest fell silent again. Well, that was Eagill, no doubt. Poor fool had never had the sense to keep his sword sheathed. Brim closed her eyes and waited, concentrating on listening to the sounds around her and on remaining still, though she could feel cold and exertion shivers beginning in her muscles now that she was not moving.

"I saw another one," a gruff, unfamiliar voice said somewhere above and behind her. Brim held her breath. "Tracks lead in this direction."

_Damn_. In her haste, she had forgotten about the tracks she would be leaving in the snow. There was always something. Her hand closed around her dagger, just in case.

"Long gone by now, looks like," replied another man. "That big one wasn't one of the escapees, but they wouldn't run if they didn't have something to hide. Smugglers maybe. Spread out, but I wouldn't waste too much time. We have to get back to the wagons."

Brim waited to breathe a sigh of relief until well after she heard both set of footsteps crunch away. She waited a moment longer just in case, and then she slowly emerged from the crevice, still listening lest the faceless threat return. Finally, she stood and brushed the soil and snow from her clothes, looking around. There was no way to know where she was, but any direction that did not lead to people who were likely to murder her was a good one.

"Psst," someone said behind her and Brim whirled, the hair on the back of her neck prickling with dread and shock, just in time to catch a glimpse of a grinning face and the glint of polished steel. _Oh, well played_, she thought, realizing too late that there had been three men instead of two, just before a heavy hobnail boot met her jaw with enough force to drive every other thought out of her head instantly.

~~0~~

The return to consciousness was a bittersweet occurrence for Brim. Her head throbbed like she had lost a pub brawl against a pack of orcs and she was colder than she had ever been in her entire life. However, she _was_ alive and, as her memories began to reconstitute themselves, she mentally kissed her thanks up to the Eight for that. _Cheers, you blighters, for one more lucky go_.

"Hey," a voice said from somewhere in front of her and Brim opened an eye against the glaring, snow-reflected sunlight around them. She was leaning against the inside wall of a wooden cart, her back sore from the awkward posture, and there was a big blond man sitting across from her, staring at her with an eager, concerned expression. She shifted, groaning as her body protested the movement, and brought her hands up to her face to shield it from the glare. They were bound tightly at the wrist, and that gave her pause.

"You're awake," he continued, as if that wasn't bloody obvious. She took a better look at him as her eyes adjusted to the light and decided that he was wearing the same tattered blue-grey armor that she had seen on the two fugitives that had passed her in the woods earlier. That, Brim thought, was a decidedly bad sign. "You were trying to cross the border illegally, right? Same as that thief over there."

Brim turned to follow his gesture and she realized that there were two more men sharing the cart with them. She knew the one the blond was referring to immediately from his shifty, disgruntled expression and ragged appearance. Not Family material, unless they were a lot less discerning up here in Skyrim. A scab, then, and apparently a poor one at that.

"Damn you Stormcloaks," the man groused, petulantly, but Brim had already turned her attention to the final occupant of the cart and let his tirade wash over her. The last of the three was also a Nord and, if his fine clothing was any indication, someone of consequence. Oddly, he appeared to have been gagged as well as bound, and his blue eyes met hers for a moment over the cloth before his gaze turned moodily inward again to his own thoughts. There was a story here, and Brim was getting the uneasy feeling that she was not going to like it when it all came out. The thief paused in his prattle to look at her. "You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

"Shut up back there!" the driver of the cart snarled, having had enough of the whining no doubt. He wore the armor of an Imperial soldier. Of all the accursed luck.

"We're all brothers in binds now, horse thief," the big blond man said, his expression darkening slightly, and the conversation died.

Brim craned her neck to look around them, trying to discern any possible avenue of escape. There was another cart in front of them on the road with four or five people in similar armor to the big blond sitting across from her. And, damn his hide, there was a rider behind them keeping watch, as well as several more soldiers, bows across their shoulders. As the cart rumbled from hole to hole down the slope of the road, the snow petered out and she could see stone walls and buildings in the distance. A town? A Legion fort? Whatever it was, she suspected that no good awaited them there.

"What's wrong with him, huh?" the thief asked to break the cloudy silence, gesturing to the man with the gag across from him.

"Watch your tongue," the blond growled, protectively. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak. The true High King."

Brim's eyebrows rose as she cast a newly appraising look over the gagged man. He stared resolutely in front of him, but she could see him frown, the tightening at his eyes and jaw that indicated some internal conflict which his gag prevented him from expressing. _Not much of a king_, she thought, but then she'd never seen one before, so what did she know? This knowledge seemed to distress the scab, however.

"If you're…and they've captured you…Oh, gods, where are they taking us?" he exclaimed, panic rising with his voice.

"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits."

_What in the infinite cold hells of Oblivion is Sovngarde?_, Brim wanted to ask, but the thief was in the process of working up to a full blown conniption, so she held the question. None of this was making any proper sense to her, but she understood the underlying point well enough. They were all in serious trouble.

"Oi," she whispered to the blond man to get his attention, glancing at the cart driver and leaning forward, "Any chance of making a break for it? All for one, one for all, eh?"

The blond shook his head.

"Tried it already. That's where they came up with you, chasing a couple poor souls that managed to jump out."

The resignation in his tone bothered her, and Brim sat back, frowning in consternation. She had always gotten herself out of scrapes before, and this would be no different. A prison cell she could break out of, eventually, but she got the feeling something more permanent and immediate was waiting down in that town ahead. It would not be hard to jump out and run for it, but she doubted she would get very far with trained archers around. It would easy enough to take out the cart driver, too, but then what?

As they drew closer to the gates, she could see soldiers up on the walls in a flurry of preparation for their arrival.

"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting," a soldier called down from the walls. A voice somewhere up ahead replied, but Brim didn't hear it, her attention hijacked by the mention of the headsman. _Mara's mercy, what have these people done to deserve that?_

The thief seemed to be thinking similar thoughts, pressing his bound hands to his face and muttering a terrified appeal to the gods as they rolled through the gates. Her eyes lit on the back of a mounted soldier in finer armor than the rest, speaking from horseback to a group of elves…Thalmor, by the look of them. Brim had seen them from time to time back in the Imperial City, but what were they doing out here? The blond was speaking to her again, bitterness in his tone, but her thoughts were consumed with trying to find a way out of this mess and so she barely listened. Archers on the wall tops, no doubt on the towers, too. And this place…Helgen, the blond called it…seemed to be a smallish outpost of a town. No place to hide where she wouldn't be immediately recognized and drug back. The only way she was going to get out of this was to talk her way out. If these men didn't just drag them off the cart and right to the chopping block.

The carts were drawing to a stop next to one of the walls and Brim could see a collection of soldiers standing around nearby.

"Get these prisoners off of the carts. Move it!" a female commander shouted at them.

"Why are we stopping?" the thief asked, anxiously, though it was obvious that he already knew the answer. The man was practically shaking in his boots, and Brim held back a scowl. _Amateur. No dignity or backbone at all._

"Why do you think? End of the line," the blond replied, dully, as the soldiers yelled at them to get out. He had a tired, fatalistic expression on his face, as if he had been expecting this for a while now and was bored with it. She couldn't help cracking a smile at that. A man after her own heart, then. Don't give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing you afraid. The horse thief, on the other hand, was practically blubbering already.

"We're not rebels!" he cried, as if anyone would listen to him.

"Face your death with some courage, thief," the blond admonished, wearily, as he jumped down from the cart. Brim followed him, the jarring motion sending an aching pain up her sore back, and looked past him, where the captives were disembarking from the other cart and beyond to where she could see the chopping block, the priest, and executioner already arrayed in the yard. _Bit of sport on your part, then?_, she asked the Divines in her head. _Letting me wake up only to put me back down later?_

"Step towards the block when we call your name," the commander demanded. "One at a time."

"Empire loves their damned lists," the big Nord next to her muttered to no one in particular. He seemed to be the type that quelled his nervousness by talking, and she agreed affably for his benefit.

"Ain't that just the bleeding truth, though."

The first to be called was Ulfric Stormcloak, the supposed High King. Suddenly, the situation made more sense. _This is political, then_, Brim thought. _Kings and soldiers playing 'who's on top' and now the losers are getting their comeuppance._ The blond was next. Ralof of Riverwood, they called him. Well, at least she had gotten to know his name before he died. The thief came afterwards and, in true fashion, made a mess of it.

"I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!" he wailed, and set off at an awkward run back towards the direction they had come. "You're not going to kill me!"

_Oh, that's where you're wrong, old son_, Brim thought, unimpressed, and watched the commander call down the archers on him. The amateur was dropped in the middle of the road before he had even gotten halfway to the gates.

"Anyone _else_ feel like running?" the commander asked, icily, turning back to Brim. She smiled and shook her head.

"Not me, your honor. Good citizen, that's what I am. This is all just a misunderstanding, I'm sure."

"Wait. Who _are_ you?" the soldier with the list said, frowning, as he squinted at the parchment in front of him.

"Name's Elsamera Brickenend, but Elsa'll do nicely," Brim lied, congenially. It was the alias she used least often, and she doubted anyone here would have heard it. Elsa was just a simple city girl. A maid or maybe a shop girl somewhere. Innocent as pie and completely incapable of doing _anything _ illegal.

"You're a long way from the Imperial City," the soldier said, suspiciously, judging from the looks of her, which in adulthood had tended more towards her mother's side of the family than her father's broad Breton features. "What are you doing in Skyrim?"

"Oh, it was terrible, sir, I tell you. One minute I'm headed up here all set to visit my old auntie, what I haven't seen in years, right? And then…"

"Captain, she's not on the list. What should we do?" the soldier interrupted before "Elsa" could start in on her sob story properly and turned to the grim-looking officer, who was glaring at Brim with an increasingly disgusted expression.

"Forget the list. She goes to the block," the officer replied, and Brim felt her chest constrict with giddy fear, though she put on an expression of injured innocence.

"Here now, what am I supposed to have done?"

The officer stepped closer to Brim and looked her up and down, scowling.

"You can drop the act. I know your type. You may not be on our list, but you've done something to earn the block, I'm sure," she turned away and gestured to the other soldier. "Process her."

"By your orders, captain," the list-keeper said, resigned, though Brim could tell he was not exactly comfortable with how this was happening, "I'm sorry. We'll make sure your remains are returned to Cyrodiil. Follow the Captain."

_Well, that's torn it_, she thought. She had never imagined it would end like this, but if there was nothing she could do, she would at least go out with better grace than the amateur had. Like Papa had, from what old Uncle Renald had told her of it. As she turned to go, she looked over her shoulder.

"Oi, soldier," she called back at him, "My name's not Elsa. It's Brim Stroud. Sorry about that. You mark that down in your book there, and you can just toss my bits in any old hole. There's no one back in the city that wants them."

With that, she turned and followed the officer to where the rest of the condemned were waiting. The same fancy-dressed officer that she had seen on horseback as they entered, General Tullius apparently, sauntered up to address the Stormcloak fellow. Cocksure, now that his enemy was in binds, Brim thought wryly and turned her attention elsewhere. If she was about to be executed, she didn't want her last moments to be spent contemplating someone else's problems.

Well, it had been a good old life and one well lost, she reflected. She had thought it would last longer, but she was still older than many of her colleagues had been when their invitations to the Undertaker's Ball turned up, and she had done Papa proud while she was working. If not for the accident, she might have gone on to be Guildmistress in the city one day. There was no use in being angry at poor Eagill for that anymore. He hadn't been a bad sort, just not terribly bright, and no one could really fault you for the brains you weren't born with. It would have been nice to have seen Evylie again and met her little girl, Brim's niece, but Brim thought maybe they were better off this way. Evylie was the good one in the family. She deserved a good life with her husband and child, without Papa and Brim's world cropping back up in the middle of it.

A strange noise, almost like a loud, distant shout, echoed through the air and bounced off of the mountains around them.

"What was that?" someone asked.

"It's nothing, carry on," the general said, and turned to take his place with the rest of the soldiers.

"Give them their last rites," the captain who had condemned Brim rapped out, and the priestess stepped forward. Brim was almost glad when one of the prisoners interrupted her before she could even get started. The gods would either accept Brim's soul or cast it out into Oblivion and there was not priest or priestess alive that could change their minds on that count now. Whichever it was going to be, better to get it over and done with.

"Come on, I haven't got all morning!" the dead man walking growled at the headsman as the captain pushed him down onto the block and Brim was impressed, smiling at his defiance. Such brass balls on that one, it was a shame he was not long for the world. She would have applauded him if her hands had been free. "My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials! Can you say the same?"

The wet crunch of the axe rending through the man's neck sent a shiver through the company.

"You Imperial bastards!" a woman shrieked, woefully, from among the prisoners. There were more shouts from the row of houses that lined the road behind them. _You'll be joining him soon enough, my duck, don't take on_, Brim thought to herself.

"As fearless in death as he was in life," Ralof commented next to her. She looked at him and saw sadness rather than fear in his face. _Well, at least I'll be going to Oblivion in good company_. She glanced at the Stormcloak gentleman, his face a stony mask. _With a king, no less. Who'd have thought it._

"Next! The renegade Imperial," the captain barked out, looking directly at Brim with a cruel smile. The same unsettling sound echoed across the houses again, louder and more pronounced this time, and now more people were looking around in bewilderment. What was it?

"There it is again," said the soldier who had taken Brim's name when she had got off of the cart, frowning.

"_I said 'Next prisoner_!'" the captain growled.

"To the block. Nice and easy," the list-keeper said to Brim, gently, as if he knew they had no right to be doing this and was sorry. Taking a deep breath, her heart pounding in her ears, Brim stepped forward. She was afraid, she could feel her insides clenching and twisting, begging for any kind of release from this nightmare, but no one else needed to know that.

"They always said I'd die with my boots on," she remarked cheekily to the headsman, a huge brute of a man, chosen no doubt for his disturbing appearance as well as his skill with an axe. "Make it a good one, eh? A girl only gets to die once."

He hesitated, but inclined his head slightly as the captain shoved her in front of the block. The list-keeper was standing there, watching her, just as helpless in the situation as she was.

"It's a fair cop," she told him, seriously, as the captain grasped her shoulder and shoved her roughly down and forward onto the bloody stump. And it was, whether he knew why or not. He looked to be her own age, and a decent lad. No reason he should have to live with the idea that he had helped kill an innocent. Brim was not that vindictive, especially with her immortal soul in the balance.

As she waited for the axe to come down, the blood from the last victim soaking up through her shirt as she stared up at the headsman in his black hood and studded black armor and tried to keep her composure, there was a flash of huge wings and a reptilian form darted through the air around the mountain. _What…_

Before she could even think the question all the way through, the largest, most frightening-looking black dragon she could ever have imagined, right out of the children's fairy tales, landed with a sound like thunder on top of the tower next to the yard. Its huge, red eyes seemed to be staring right at her.

"What in Oblivion is that?" roared General Tullius from nearby. But Brim's gaze was trained unwaveringly on the dragon's, unable to take in anything else about what was happening around her. _You're here for me_, she realized, uncertain of why or how she knew it, and the dragon reared back its head in a deadly S-curve and roared.

The clouds began to boil overhead like the very end of the world had arrived and, for an instant, Brim thought she could detect words in the wall of sound emanating from the dragon. Then, there was the crack and deep boom of thunder as lightning struck, so close by that Brim could feel the heat and energy of it course instantly through every fiber of her body, blurring her vision and making her muscles jump and seize. The world seemed to erupt in noise and motion around her.

"Hey!" a voice shouted at her as someone grabbed her shoulder, "Come on, the gods might not give us another chance!"

She allowed the rough hands to pull her up from the block and found herself blinking into Ralof's scruffy, frightened face. Still uncoordinated from the effects of the lightning, she stumbled after him, trying to dodge the man-sized stones that were raining down around her like hail as he bolted for the entrance to one of the towers nearby. Maybe the game was not quite over yet after all.

~~0~~

Ralof had seen a lot of things in his time, but he had never seen, or even imagined he would ever see, a dragon. The hideous, evil form of it, red eyes blazing, was seared into his memory, and it would take a lot of drinking to get it out again. _A lot. _If he lived. He pushed the girl into the keep ahead of him and heard someone slam the door shut and draw the bolt as he leaned against the stones and heaved for breath. _Dragons were not supposed to exist anymore._ But every Nord in Skyrim knew the old stories about Alduin, the World-Eater, the King-Bane. _Could it really be happening?_

He did not know exactly what had possessed him to go back for the girl, either, except that she had made an impression on him. She looked like a perfectly ordinary woman, beddable enough, though all women probably seemed that way when you were about to have your head chopped off. There was something in the way she held herself, though, and the way she had bantered morbidly with the headsman even as she knew she was about to die, that had struck a chord with him. She was brazen. And it would have been a shame to let her die in the chaos after being spared the axe. That was all.

Ulfric was next to him then, the tall Jarl looking around already, noting what they had their disposal, their resources, who had survived and who had not. Thank Talos that they had managed to get him undercover before that dragon had attacked in earnest. Without Ulfric, Skyrim and all they were fighting for was lost.

"Jarl Ulfric, what was that thing?" Ralof panted, desperate for an explanation for what had just befallen them, for someone to make sense of it all. If anyone would know, it would be Ulfric. He had been a novice at High Hrothgar once, hadn't he? He knew the legends better than the greatest bard or scholar. "Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down villages," the Jarl replied, solemnly, his brow furrowed in concentration. Ralof looked over at the girl, who was scrabbling for a dagger that had been dropped in the panic, cursing under her breath as she fumbled with it and tried to cut herself free. The sound of wood and stone shattering, accompanied by a shrieking roar from overhead and the crackle of fire, shook the tower down to its foundations, yanking his mind back to the problem at hand. The wooden door began to smoke, and the rivets began to glow a worrying hot-iron red.

"We need to move _now_!" Ulfric shouted above the fray. The rest of the soldiers were already trying to gather up their wounded comrades and pull them towards the back of the tower away from the inferno that was raging outside of the door, and Ralof hurried over to the girl, still struggling with her bonds. He had saved her and he felt responsible for her now. She was a civilian and he was a soldier. It was his job.

"No time for that," he told her quickly, taking her arm. Her green eyes were oddly devoid of fear as she gave him a questioning look, and he started to pull her along after him. "Up through the tower with me, come on!"

She followed him easily enough after that, and Ralof pelted up the stairs with his charge in close pursuit. He had no idea what they were going to do, but they would get out of this. Somehow. Talos help them.


	3. CHAPTER 2: The Escape from Helgen

The tower groaned and shook around Brim in a highly worrying fashion, but still she hurtled up the spiral of stone steps after Ralof. It seemed like the wrong direction to be running in a collapsing building, but when faced with a choice between being crushed by falling debris, walking out directly into a fire, or falling to her death, she supposed it didn't particularly matter. A girl can only contemplate her impending demise so many times in one day before the charm wears off. The dragon's guttural roar made the very air vibrate around them, and it almost seemed like the attack was beginning to focus in on the tower itself. _It knows we're in here,_ she thought. _It knows _I'm _in here_. She had made enemies over the course of her twenty-three years, but what a dragon could have against her, she had no idea. As the air burned through her lungs and her muscles began to ache from exertion, she was certain of one thing: she wanted to live, and she would do anything and everything in her power to make sure that happened.

She heard the _whumph!_ of the dragon's wings alarmingly close on the other side of the stones just seconds before the side wall exploded inwards.

"Get back!" she yelled and pulled against the Nord's grip, flattening herself to the wall and halting his forward progress just in time to keep him from running full tilt into the dragon's massive head. The dragon screamed in what sounded to her like frustration, its breath a column of flame. Brim felt the heat of it singing the hairs on her exposed arms as she threw them up over her face, but the dragon had not been able to maneuver its head in the opening to reach them with the inferno. She heard screams of pain and fear from below and knew that others probably had not been so lucky.

The dragon twisted with a growl and wrenched its head from the opening, flapping off. Ralof, panting, pulled her forward up to the hole in the side. The rest of the staircase leading up had collapsed downwards, preventing further progress, and Brim could see patches of blue above them.

"Through the gap, there's an inn on the other side. Jump through the roof," the Nord yelled at her through the din.

_Are you mad?, _she wanted to reply as she looked through the hole, judging the distances involved, but her throat was choked with stone dust and soot. That was a long jump, even if her hands had been free to help balance, and it would be easy enough to break a leg or impale herself on the splintered wood of the roof timbers if she landed wrong.

"Go," he urged, insistently, "I have to protect the Jarl. We'll find another way out and catch up with you. Find a place to hide if you can."

Brim was about to argue, but she could hear the remaining support beams in the tower creaking as if they might snap at any moment. When they went, the tower would fall. And she did not want to be where she was standing when that happened. Taking a deep-breath, she focused on the place she wanted to land, an open spot where the inn's roof had been ripped away to reveal what must have been a loft or attic room, and took a running leap into empty space. _I've come this far, don't fail me now, you bastards_, she prayed.

As she fell through the air, she heard a furious, unearthly shriek nearby, the dragon swooping out of the sky to gather her up. By now, she was almost certain that the monster was after _her _particularly. Brim added her own scream to the thunderous noise, closing her eyes tightly as she imagined enormous claws ripping through her flesh like an eagle snatching a sparrow out of the air. But the pain never came and an instant later she hit the thatch of the roof and clung for dear life, digging her boots into the thick mat of reeds for purchase as she scrambled over the edge of the hole and into the attic. The dragon roared wrathfully, having been denied its prey, as it shot upwards once more.

~~0~~

_They never said this job would be easy_, Hadvar thought to himself as he dashed around the back of the tower, sweating profusely and covered from head to toe in dirt and blood. Most of the blood wasn't even his own. _But they never said anything about fighting dragons either._

He had been separated from the commander and the rest of his detail in the panic that had ensued after the dragon's initial attack and, in the process of trying to find them, he had stumbled upon the wreckage of the smithy. Gunnar the smith had been trapped inside, still alive by the grace of whichever god had been paying attention to the old man's prayers, and Hadvar could not leave him there to die in the rubble. The rest of the family was nowhere in evidence. They could only hope that his daughter and grandchildren had gotten away and were not entombed inside the charred ruins of the house. As he rounded the corner of the crumbling tower, the dragon's dark shadow passed overhead again and he stopped, breathless and filled with sickening dread as he looked for any cover from the next onslaught. The beast seemed to _everywhere_.

His eyes landed on two figures in the dirt path between the tower and one of the outbuildings that was set against the stone wall of the keep. One was an adult, bloodied and pulling himself along the ground at an agonizingly slow pace. Hadvar could see even from this distance that one of the man's legs was twisted at an unnatural angle. It looked to be Torolf, a mercenary whose family lived in the town and who he had drunk ale with often enough at the inn. The second figure, a child, must be his son Hamming, frantically trying to help drag his father to safety.

Before he could rush forward to assist, another figure shot past him, pelting along the dirt path. It was the rogue Imperial, the one who had not been on the list but who had been condemned anyway. _Gods-speed, _he thought. _Anyone who survives a beheading and a dragon attack in one day has paid their debt to society by my reckoning._ However, as she passed the boy and his father, a dark form dropped like a falcon to land in the yard in front of her, filling the space between the buildings like the black, gaping maw of Oblivion itself.

"Hamming, you need to get over here!" Hadvar shouted desperately in warning. It would be impossible to reach Torolf, but the boy might just make it. The child stared, gape-mouthed, at the dragon as if his feet were frozen to the ground, while his father screamed at him to run. The prisoner skidded in the dirt, cursing, as she scrambled to reverse her direction.

"Move, move, move!" Hadvar heard her screech at the boy, frightening him into action as Torolf used what strength he could muster to shove the child back in Hadvar's direction. The smith moved forward and gathered Hamming up just as Hadvar saw the dragon's head rear back.

"Gods! Everyone get back!" he exclaimed in alarm, dragging his charges towards the back wall of the compound as a wave of flame, hot enough to melt stone, scorched through the passageway. For one brief terrible instant, he saw the dark outline of Torolf's crumpled form against the flame and the pale, determined face of the Imperial as she tried to outrun the blast, and he closed his eyes tightly and pressed his forearm over his face, unable and unwilling to watch them burned alive.

The dragon launched itself back into the air once more with a deafening clap of wings and Hadvar looked up to see it arc away over the compound, circling, planning where it would strike next. The old smith clutched the boy, now weeping hysterically, to his chest to keep him from trying to dash back to his father. There was no chance that Torolf had survived a fire that hot and no child needed to see what was laying in the road. _At least we saved Hamming_, he thought, and cast around desperately, trying to determine a way to get them out of this mess.

A groan sounded nearby and he whirled to see, beyond all reason, the girl convict uncurl and emerge from behind the rubble of the collapsed wall of the outbuilding, alive and unburned. _Someone or something is watching over you, _Hadvar thought, incredulously, and then pulled himself together.

"Still alive, Brim?" he asked, recalling the name she had given him as he helped her up. Her wrists were still bound together and she was having trouble regaining her feet. She blinked up into his face, as if surprised to hear her own name.

"Aye," she coughed, and he nodded back to her.

"Stay close to me if you want to keep it that way," he replied, trying to sound as authoritative as he could. _I don't care what you've done, I'm not letting a bound and defenseless woman be slaughtered if I can help it._ He looked around, trying to determine any avenue through which they could escape.

"Begging your pardon, but we need to bloody well get out of the open before it comes back," Brim suggested, vehemently, the blurred tones of her city accent strange to his ears. He nodded and made a decision. The dragon was too fast to escape on foot, even if they could get out of the gates. There was a basement under the keep, a deep one, and tunnels that lead out in case of just such an emergency. That might be their only chance. The smith and the boy, though, were in no condition to move that quickly, and they would be too large and slow-moving a group. _I don't want to die_, he thought, and was ashamed of himself for it. The girl was staring at him intently, though, and something had to be done.

"Gunnar, take care of the boy. It sounds like the dragon has been diverted to the main part of the keep. Find a place to hide and stay undercover until it's over," he told the old man and then glanced at Brim. She seemed wily and strong enough that, between them, it might just be possible to make it through the caverns underneath. "You're with me. Come on."

"Gods guide you, Hadvar!" he heard the smith call as he hurried towards the keep with Brim in tow, trying to avoid crossing open places as much as possible as they ran.

_Same to you, old man_, he thought. _Divines grant that I haven't just signed both of your death warrants._

~~0~~

Brim was starting to feel optimistic about her chances of survival again as she pounded along behind the young soldier, jumping over fallen debris and trying to stay low. She had been worried that he would insist on bringing the baggage with them, not that she had anything against the old man and the nipper. It wasn't their fault that they were a liability, poor souls, but in a contest between her life and the lives of miscellaneous bystanders, Brim knew exactly where her priorities fell.

"Stay close to the wall," Hadvar shouted back to her. She jumped down from the gutted foundation of one house and followed him into the dog-run behind another. She had no idea where they were going, but the soldier knew the layout of the town better than she did and she was prepared to take a leap of faith. It had served her well so far.

Ahead, Brim could see the town's main road and heard the screaming of the soldiers above the fray as they milled around in the open space, desperately trying to defend themselves.

"Die! Why won't you die?" a panicked voice shouted from somewhere on the other side of the house they were behind, joined by a different voice that exclaimed hopelessly, "It just keeps coming…"

_It's not finished what it came here to do yet,_ she thought, icy fear prickling up her spine once again, just seconds before she felt the terrifying heat and rush of air as an immense body descended over her, crashing onto the walltop overhead. She collided with Hadvar and fought frantically to get free and run, but he wrapped his arm around her and hugged her back against the wall with him as the great black wings enveloped them, the dry, fetid stench of fire, blood, and death choking the air.

"Don't. Move," he rasped in a terrified whisper, but the monster that had landed on the walltop above them was concentrated on the courtyard, not on them. Brim could only watch in horrified fascination as its huge talons, like ebony scythes, clenched and unclenched, the wing tendons creaking and snapping. Finally, after what seemed like a long, long moment, the creature took off again, mercifully unaware of their presence right at its feet, and all she could hear was a ringing in her ears after its deafening roar.

Time seemed to move in irregular jerks as Brim followed the soldier out into the courtyard. There was death all around her, men fighting, screaming, and shouting at each other, tripping over their injured and deceased comrades. It was too much for her brain to take in all at once, and so ever after she would be left only with flashes of images…the man kneeling in the dirt in the center of the compound staring in wide-eyed shock as he tried to hold his own entrails in with his hands, General Tullius with bloodied armor shouting as his men gathered around him, bodies burned beyond recognition strewn along the road. _ I'd have never have made a soldier_, she thought, gritting her teeth and redoubling her pace to get away from the carnage. _Let these damned heroes throw their lives away for a handful of septim a week, I want to live._

"Ralof! You damned traitor!" she heard Hadvar shout, angrily, ahead of her as she followed him into the yard of the fortified keep, the smoking ruin of the crumbling tower visible just over the wall. The big blonde Nord had hefted himself up and over a section of wall that had crumbled in the attack and was running for the door of the keep. He stopped, falling into half a crouch as he looked at both of them warily. Brim could see Hadvar's jaw clench in an expression that belied what seemed to her a distinctly personal grudge, not just the general anger one feels against someone on the opposing side of a dispute. _Oh, we know each other, do we?_ she thought, as Hadvar continued, "Get out of our way!"

"We're escaping, Hadvar. You can't stop us!" Ralof bellowed back, and Brim decided that she had absolutely just reached her limit for the day. Oblivion's gates, they might as well just line up and wait for the dragon to come and fry them up like so many sausages.

"What is this, a bleeding knitting circle? Let's….oh, hells!" she started, just as the massive black form of the dragon filled the sky behind Ralof, hurtling down in a shallow dive directly at her with its claws outstretched, its great gaping jaws open, and the flaming coals of its eyes blazing triumph. She turned without a thought, streaking towards the nearest door of the keep and into the darkness within. Whatever waited in there could not be worse than the death from above that was bearing down on her outside.

* * *

_And that's almost exactly how my first play through of the Skyrim opening went. No great moral or ideological choice on who I wanted to run off with, I just happen to arrive at the keep at the exact moment that the dragon AI decided to swoop down almost right in my face and I ran for the nearest visible exit trailing a line of expletives and probably digital poo as well. :) I didn't even realize there was a choice until my second playthrough._

_Thank you for the very insightful and detailed reviews, I'm so pleased to hear that you guys like the character and the story so far. Writing Brim is sort of liberating, because she gets to say and do all the things my more straight-laced characters really wanted to do but were too honourable and polite to actually pull off._


	4. CHAPTER 3: A Fresh Start

It took a moment for Brim's eyes to adjust to the relative low-light inside of the keep, after which she found herself in a wide, round room. There were two stone archways leading out into other parts of the fortified building, both of which were closed off with sturdy steel gates. She hurried towards the back wall to get as far away from the entrance as she could and turned just in time to see Ralof dart inside after her and slam the door.

"That dragon doesn't give up," he panted, and then his eyes fell on something close to her feet. She looked down to see the body of one of the Stormcloak soldiers laying in a fetal position nearby in a puddle of congealing blood. A jagged spar of wood protruded from his abdomen, and now she noticed the blood trail leading from the door. Poor bugger had dragged himself in here to die. Ralof hurried over and knelt down, checking in vain for signs of life, and then sighed. Brim watched him close the dead man's eyes in a gesture of respect. "We'll meet again in Sovngarde, brother."

He stood and turned to her, his expression easing very slightly.

"Are you alright? I admit, I didn't think to see you again."

_Because you chucked me out of a burning tower or because you thought I might actually have gotten away?_ she thought, but held up her hands with as casual a shrug as she could muster under the circumstances."I'd be a lot better if I weren't still trussed up like a chicken.

"Let's get you free," he said, drawing a knife from his belt. She moved closer to him and he started to saw on the stubborn ropes. "What's your name?"

"Call me Brim," she said, wincing as he cut through the last of the cords and she rubbed the circulation back into her wrists. She had considered giving a false name, but she had no patience or energy to keep up the ruse at the moment and, anyway, she doubted he would peach on her if they managed to find their way out of here alive. Neither of them appeared to be on good terms with the law of the land at the moment.

"Well, Brim, you might as well take Gunjar's gear there," he told her, gesturing to the dead man. "You're going to need more protection than those rags, if I had to guess. I'll see if I can find a way out of here."

Brim looked down at her clothes, which had not been rags when she had left Cyrodiil but which now looked like something that had been fished out of the rubbish pile at a slaughter house, and then at the complicated looking layers of the Stormcloak's armor. She had never needed anything more formidable than the thick leathers she sometimes wore to avoid taking a dagger in the vitals while executing some of the Guild's more confrontational business and she had not the slightest idea how actual armor was supposed to go on. The Nord had a point, though. If nothing else, the Stormcloak's armor would be warmer.

Quickly, she stripped the chainmail and fur wraps off of the corpse and wriggled into them as best she could. Brim was rather tall as women went, but the armor had been made for someone bigger than her and of a distinctly different shape. It bunched and folded in the wrong places and stretched uncomfortably across others. _How does anyone fight in this?_ Brim wondered, as she picked up the iron hand-axe that was lying near the body. Giving it an experimental swing, she found herself wishing that the man had been wielding a proper blade like a real soldier. Axes, as far as she was concerned were for chopping firewood. _And necks in this part of the world, looks like_, she reminded herself, thinking of the headsman.

"Damn, they're both locked," Ralof said, as he stepped back from one of the doors, looking around with a frown for any release mechanism nearby that might unlock them. Brim was about to ask him if he had a bit of metal she could use as a pick when the echo of distant voices filtered down the hall way. They looked at each other and the big man shook his head and stepped quickly back to one side of the doorway, pulling his axe. Brim pressed herself to the cold stone on the opposite side and listened, her eyes trained on Ralof's awaiting further instructions.

"We need to get out of here," a precise female voice rapped out, footsteps coming closer now. _Oh, that's just perfect_, Brim thought, recognizing the voice as an incredulous and malicious smile spread over her face. _Isn't that just a coup?_ She raised her axe with a questioning look and Ralof nodded, readying his own to let loose on the Imperials once they came through the door. There was a metallic fumbling at the lock, and she could hear the shuffling of two sets of feet on the stones. "We'll go down through the tunnels. There were the guards and the torturer still down in the dungeons…"

As soon as the Imperials had passed the threshold, Ralof attacked, drawing their attention with a battle-cry. Brim waited a split second for the two soldiers to turn instinctively to counter the threat and then, wielding her axe like a billy-club, brought it down hard on the female officer's head. Even through the steel helmet, that was bound to ring her bell, and in actuality it seemed to stun the woman long enough for Ralof to bury his axe into the narrow chink between her pauldron and the lower guard of her helmet, splitting the flesh of her neck. Brim's axe found its mark next in the unprotected face of the second soldier, putting an end to his confusion at once.

The Legion officer's dark eyes stared up in disbelief at Brim's face as she scrabbled weakly at the wound that gaped like a second screaming mouth in her throat. It was the same woman that had condemned Brim to death not an hour or so before, Brim was certain of it. _And that's sodding justice if I've ever seen it, _she thought, smiling.

"Don't worry, your honor. I'm sure you've done _something_ to earn it." Brim observed with mock sobriety, visiting the curse of the dying woman's own words back on her. It was the last thing the officer would hear before she exhaled a rattling breath and died, with Brim's hands already helping themselves to the better steel of her Legion sword and belt dagger.

"Does she have the key on her?" Ralof asked, urgently, and Brim rummaged around on the corpses, finding a ring of iron keys and a small handful of gold coins. She tossed the keys up to Ralof, who hurried over to the far door, and dropped the coins surreptitiously into the belt pouch she had picked off of the deceased Stormcloak. All of her belongings had been either left where she fell or confiscated when she had been captured. She would need the coin to see her on her way when she left this place. _When_, not _if_ anymore, she thought. While she knew they were still not out of the woods, and afterwards there would be the business of figuring out where to go next, the interlude had cheered her up immensely. _Much obliged_, she said in her mind to whichever trickster god or spirit had thrown her enemy back into her path.

"It worked. Come on, before that dragon brings this place down around us," her traveling companion called back to her and Brim straightened and trotted after him, securing her newly liberated weapons onto her baldric. _This might just work out after all._

~~0~~

High on the Throat of the World, Master Arngeir contemplated the sky, as he had every day of his adult life. In good weather or bad, it was his long standing habit to visit the overlook in the monastery training yard and he spent a great deal of his time in meditation there, communing with his beloved Kyne, Lady of Storm and Sky. Today, She was at peace, stretching around him like an empty canvas of vibrant blue, save for a single, large column of white smoke that drifted up from the landscape below.

The great black dragon roared its fury, a sound that echoed all the way up to the highest peak of the Throat's spire, as it circled the unfortunate town miles below. To Arngeir, it seemed like a speck of concentrated darkness, a piece of the Void made flesh. _And the Scrolls have foretold of black wings in the cold that, when brothers' wage war, come unfurled_. He recited the ancient verse in his mind as he observed the destruction, a passive witness and nothing more. _Alduin, Firstborn of Akatosh, World-Eater and harbinger of doom._ Like all Nords, he had heard the legends and stories at the knees of his elders, though in his meditations and studies since then he had come to view such things as both distraction and dangerous nuisance. Still, he could feel the subtle shift of the world, the movement of the threads of Time as they tangled and unraveled themselves, and he did not doubt that the prophecies had been correct. _And so it has come._

He turned away from the spectacle and walked sedately back to the main building of the monastery. The end of the world did not concern him. All things with a beginning must also have an end. That was the proper order of reality. To all things that live, death must come, so that life may begin anew. Perhaps in the death of this world, other worlds waited to be born.

One thing did concern him, however. It was commonly believed that a Dragonborn, a mortal uniquely gifted by the god Akatosh with the immortal soul of a dragon, would arise in the last days to do battle with Alduin. Not a single Dragonborn had surfaced in the centuries since Tiber Septim had marched away to glory and godhood in the Imperial south, though Arngeir did not doubt that the seed of Dragon Blood remained in the world, hidden away until necessity or chance caused it them germinate again. And it was the responsibility of his order, the Greybeards, ordained upon them by Kyne who first taught the gift of the Voice to Man, to initiate and guide the newly fledged Dragonborn when he or she was revealed.

His fellow brothers were waiting in the hall of meditation when Arngeir arrived. Few young students had come to study at the monastery in recent years, but the old masters…Bolli, Wulfgar, and Einarth…remained as steadfast as the pillars of the stone building itself. He looked into their silent, expectant faces in turn, and realized that they, too, had felt the changing of the world-tides. Finding it unnecessary to speak the thing that they all understood to be true, he nodded. _Watch, and wait. It will not be long now._

~~0~~

"Thank the gods, I was beginning to think we'd never get out of there," Ralof puffed, as he climbed the last few feet of broken rocks and gravel that lead out of the cavernous tunnels and into the sunlight. Brim hefted herself up behind him and looked around, swiveling her head to make sure that they had not walked into any possible danger before adding her agreement. Only trees and rocks and rippling hills bounded by higher mountains in the distance greeted her eyes, and she relaxed.

"Aye, too right," she replied, and sheathed her sword. After the two of them had worked their way down through the basement and cut through a small handful of Legion stragglers, not to mention a clutch of spiders the size of large dogs that had set up in one of the tunnels, the going had been remarkably easy if rather long. Ralof had proved to be a valuable partner, though, and she was pleased that she had not had to brave the escape on her own. It wasn't the same without Eagill, of course, but this Nord was quick enough with his axe and seemed to have a bit more between the ears than her former business partner could have claimed on his best day.

A roar rent the air, and instinctively Brim ducked and hurried behind a large rock. _How does this thing keep _finding_ me?_ Ralof dropped down beside her, and they watched the forbidding, serpentine form of the dragon ride the air currents through the valley and swing away to the north east. When it was out of sight, Ralof rose and breathed a sigh of relief, and Brim followed suit more hesitantly. She had already been careless with keeping track of her foes once. She would not make the same mistake twice.

"I don't know about you, but I don't think we should stay here and see if it comes back," Ralof told her, and turned to start down the path that led away from the cave entrance. Brim fell in next to him, keeping a wary eye on the sky. "This place will be swarming with Imperials soon enough, anyway, and we don't want to be here when that happens."

"What's this business with your people and the Legion, eh?" she asked, finally, as they walked. She had made the connection between Ulfric Stormcloak, the supposed king, and the soldiers of the same name, but what that had to do with the price of ale she had not the slightest idea. Obviously, they had upset someone somewhere.

"You really don't know?" he replied, frowning. "Surely, word of the civil war has reached Cyrodiil…"

"I'm not much for politics," she interrupted, pre-empting him. _Not the kind your lot seemed to be wrapped up in anyways_. He nodded at that, as if understanding. It was a common attitude everywhere, no doubt. Most of the people she knew couldn't care less about the goings on of kings and soldiers, so long as they had a bit of gold in their own pockets and a meal on their plates come nightfall.

"The true Nords of Skyrim have had enough of the Empire's boot on our necks. We're fighting for our freedom. Jarl Ulfric challenged the High King and beat him in fair combat, and now the Empire accuses him of murder and calls for his head."

"Ain't that just bleeding typical." Brim commented conversationally, as if sharing his outrage. In all honesty, she didn't give a toss about Skyrim or Nords or the Empire, for that matter, but it was always good policy to be agreeable towards people who did. He looked up at her, then, surprised.

"I hadn't expected an Imperial like you to…not that…I mean..."

"Oh, aye. It's just the same down in the cities. Bloody Legion. Crashing around so as decent people can't hear themselves think, cutting the heads off folk without so much as a 'by your leave'. You lads have the right idea, and no mistake."

"If you feel that way, you should come with me and join the fight," Ralof replied, earnestly. "We always need more recruits, and someone like you could really make a difference. I haven't seen many women who could wield a sword like you did back there in the tunnels."

"I just might at that," she replied, noncommittally, and he looked anxiously around them.

"For now, we should head to Riverwood. My sister runs the mill there, and I'm sure she'll be able to give us shelter while we decide what to do next. We're in Imperial-held territory here, but if we get to the village ahead of the news of Helgen, it should be safe enough. If any soldiers turn up, just let me do the talking."

Brim nodded her assent, and they set off at a jog along the path. Insects hummed through the wildflowers that were scattered along the sides of the dirt road, the sun shone down and warmed the otherwise cool air, and she could hear the soothing susurrus of rushing water in the distance. If she had not been covered in dirt and grime, smelling to high heavens, and expecting a scaly bringer of a fiery death to show back up at any instant, it would have been a rather nice day.

As they rounded a bend in the trail, Brim spotted an odd collection of stones ahead just off of the path. They were clearly set up there by people, arranged in a triangle on a low stone and clay platform and worn smooth by age or touch. As they approached, she could see the intricate carvings that laced in regular patterns across their surface.

"The Guardian Stones," Ralof informed her, guessing at her next question. He stopped, taking the opportunity to rest for a moment. "The ancient Nords set them up here ages ago. The stories say that they're supposed to impart a blessing on those who touch them. Go ahead, see for yourself."

Skeptically, Brim stepped up onto the platform and studied the three oblong objects. Most of the carvings made no sense to her, but she could see the definite outline of figures carved into the front of each stone. One wielded an axe as if just about to cleave an enemy in two. Another, very clearly a mage of some kind, raised a staff in one hand and threw the other hand forward as if to cast a spell. The last bore a figure that Brim found familiar immediately and she smile. She reached out to caress the grooves of the cloaked, crouched form, tracing the rudimentary face and the dagger in its hand, and felt the briefest tingle in her palm as the stone warmed to her touch. _We understand each other then. Good._

"The Thief, huh?" she heard Ralof say, as she turned back to him. He did not appear to disapprove of her choice, exactly, though his expression seemed reserved. "It's not too late to take charge of your own fate, you know."

"Aye, I suppose that's why I'm here," she retorted, lightly. She watched as he moved forward and brushed his fingers over the Warrior Stone for good luck, and they continued on. He eyed her carefully as they loped side by side along the road, which had turned to follow the bank of a fast-moving river.

"Smuggler, then? That's the only reason I can think of for anyone to be up in those mountains at this time of year."

"My mate was running sugar," she lied, casually, weaving Eagill's actual history into the cover she was spinning for herself on the fly, "I was just along to make sure he didn't get stiffed when he delivered the goods. Not too bright, you know. Poor sod."

"I'm sorry. We lost good men out there as well," he replied, apologetically, as if sorry he had brought it up. "Still, it sounds like a fresh start in Skyrim might not be the worst thing that could happen to you. I'm glad to have you along, anyway. I don't think I would have made it out alone."

Brim flashed a smile at him. She was beginning to like the Nord. He was uncomplicated, said what was on his mind, and seemed easy enough to get along with. All fine traits in a man, even if he did reek of honesty. If this village he was leading her to had a tavern, she might make bold enough to buy him a drink out of the coin she had collected while they were making their way down through the fort cellars. He had pulled her off of the block and fought at her back, it was the least she could do. And then, she would sort herself out and be on her way. Before she had stopped writing, Evylie's letters had come from Windhelm, wherever that was. Hopefully, she would still be living there, and would see fit to extend a measure of hospitality to a younger sister in need until Brim could figure out where to go next.

~~0~~

The sight of Riverwood was almost enough to make Ralof shed tears of relief, but he remained cautious. He was so tired that he felt like he would just collapse, snoring, in the road at any moment, but there was no telling what news had already come ahead of them and they needed to be careful. If the Imperials got their hands on him, he would find himself in a prison cell or back at the block before the day was out, and Brim would most likely meet the same fate by association. He cast a glance at the Imperial girl beside him, her face dirty and her dark hair hanging in wild, matted tresses around her shoulders. Neither of them looked like good, upstanding citizens at the moment.

"My sister is around here somewhere. Probably at the mill," he told her, slowing to a casual walk as they entered the gates and he turned onto the footbridge than ran across the river towards the sawmill. "It looks like we're ahead of any soldiers, but we need to talk to Gerdur first and get undercover as soon as possible. Stay close to me."

Brim nodded and hurried after him as they skirted the long structure of the mill. She was a sharp one, and he was beginning to hope that she _would _stick around awhile and follow him back to Windhelm. First, though, they would have to get out of enemy territory. Mercifully, he spotted Gerdur quickly, sharpening axes for her woodcutters at her workbench, and hurried towards her.

"Brother!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening as she noticed him and stood from her grindstone, looking him up and down, "Are you on leave? What happened to you? And who is this? One of your comrades?"

He felt her eyes slide past him to Brim, and held up his hands. There would be time to explain, but not here. He could already see her assistant, that elf Faendal, eying them suspiciously.

"Gerdur, I'm fine. But we need to talk. Somewhere safe."

"Of course, come with me." Gerdur had always been the sensible one in the family. He could see the worry beginning in her eyes, but she was practical enough to know when to hold her questions. She turned and started towards a grassy knoll by river, far enough away from the mill and the main part of the town where they would not attract attention. "Hod, get down here."

Ralof looked up to see his brother-in-law lean over the railing of the mill and peer down at them. He had always gotten along well with the man and had spent more than one evening laughing over a pint of mead with him at the inn, which was fortunate now that he was imposing himself on their home.

"Uncle Ralof!" a boy shouted, joyfully, as he pelted across the footbridge and Ralof winced, looking around. It was Gerdur's son Frodnar, his nephew, bigger by a handspan now than the last time he had seen him. The child stared up with an almost worshipful glint in his eyes, his scruffy grey dog panting behind him. "Can I see your axe? How many Imperials have you killed?"

"Go and watch the road. Come and tell us if you see any soldiers." his mother told him, sharply, and the boy looked crestfallen.

"But, mama, I want to stay and talk to Uncle Ralof…"

"Frodnar…" Gerdur warned, and Ralof decided to intervene with a more subtle tactic. Glancing at his sister's pursed lips and stormy expression, he hunkered down in front of his nephew, grinning.

"Look at you. Almost a man," he said, approvingly, and the boy grinned back brightly, delighted at the praise from his favorite uncle. "You'll be big enough to join the fight yourself soon."

"That's right! Don't worry, Uncle Ralof, I won't let any of those soldiers get you!" Frodnar exclaimed and raced away back into town. Ralof stood, grunting as his sore muscles straightened, and returned his sister's half-smile. _You get more flies with honey than vinager._ Hod arrived at that moment, and so the explanations began. Gerdur listened, her expression shifting from doubt to serious concern as he told her about the dragon and his escape from Helgen. He saw her glance around the open sky, as if expecting to see the dragon at any moment. _Of course she's worried, she has a village and people to protect_, he thought.

"I hate to put your family in danger, Gerdur, but…"

"Nonsense." She replied, quickly, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. She glanced up at Brim, who had stood silently by during the conversation, watching the road nervously, and nodded. "You and your friend are welcome to stay as long as you need to. Any friend of my brother's is welcome here."

He saw Brim smile, and relaxed. He would have to find some way to repay his sister for this. It really was more of a risk than he would ever have felt comfortable asking of them before. If the Imperials found out that Gerdur had harbored fugitives, she and her husband would be in serious trouble. The Legion had cracked down hard on sympathizers recently, and the results were not easy to stomach.

"There is something you could do for me, though," she said to Brim, who cocked her head in surprise at having been put on the spot, "The Jarl in Whiterun needs to know about the dragon. If it attacks, Riverwood is defenseless and we need to request additional guards from the city. Ralof is too well-known around here, they would know him for a Stormcloak on sight, but you…it can wait until after you've both had some food and rest, of course."

"I think that can just about be arranged. I'd be an awful ingrate otherwise, eh? Just point me in the right direction." Brim replied, completely unruffled, and Ralof smiled, relieved. He was beginning to like the Imperial. Maybe she had been involved with some dishonest types before, but she seemed like a decent person to him and pleasant enough. There was always time to change, and maybe some better company and getting involved in a good cause would put her on the right track. His sister smiled, too, and nodded.

"I'll take them to the house. Show them where everything is," Hod said and, gratefully, Ralof fell in behind him with Brim picking up the rear. He could not remember the last time he had eaten anything or slept, and he had no doubt that the same was true for his companion. After her jaunt into Whiterun tomorrow to deliver the news to Jarl Balgruuf, they could make further plans. For now, it was enough to know they would soon have some food and warm place to sleep.

~~0~~

Brim felt that she would never again in her life underestimate the pleasure of being washed, fed, and dressed in clothing that did not smell and look like it had been drug through a pigsty twice. Ralof's sister had given her a second-hand kirtle to wear, as her old togs were fit for little else than stoking the fire. She sat with her back to the hearth and fluffed out her hair, drying back to its normal shade of dark brown now that it was clean, and smiled at Ralof, who had settled down on one of the pallets that Hod had laid out for them in front of the fire earlier.

The house had grown quiet as the family had already gone to bed, leaving the two guests to situate themselves. Ralof had opted to take the pallet closest to the door, Brim supposed, out of some sense of obligation. _Isn't that right gentlemanly of him_.

"You'll be heading back to your army fellows tomorrow, I suspect," she remarked, and he shrugged.

"I'll probably end up hiding out here for a few days. I'm more than a little stove up from the fight, and I want to give the Legion time to settle down before I strike out back for Windhelm."

"You're going to Windhelm?" she exclaimed, surprised. _Well, that's convenient._ "My sister lives in Windhelm with her husband. Was thinking of heading there to see if she would put me up for a bit."

He smiled at her, propping himself up on one elbow, as he watched her combing her fingers through her hair to untangle the knots. The kirtle was a bit more form-fitting than what she had been wearing until now, and she noticed with an inward smile that his eyes move further down her figure than her face. He wasn't a bad looking man himself in this light, with the dirt scrubbed off of him.

"You should come with me, then. It's a good city, and I could put in a good word for you, if you wanted to join up with Ulfric's men."

"You think he made it out safe, then?" she asked, more for conversations sake than real curiousity.

"I know he did," Ralof replied confidently. _True believer, this one_, she observed, as he continued, "Ulfric Stormcloak is a hero, it will take more than a dragon to kill him. And I know the others would have given their lives to get him to safety. He's Skyrim's only hope to throw off the Imperial oppressors."

She nodded and stretched, yawning deeply, as she leaned forward and crawled onto her own pallet. Her hair was dry enough for the purpose by now. The subtle shift from Ralof's prone form told her that her closeness, now that she looked more like a woman and less like a soldier, was having more of an effect on him that he would have liked to admit. A thought struck her, and she glanced towards the back of the darkened house, listening for the gentle snores that were starting to waft from the family's sleeping area. _No better time to live a little than when you've spent the rest of the day half an inch from death._

"Well, and I never did thank you properly for saving my life, did I?" she said, smoothly, as if just remembering while she turned on her side to face him. She could almost feel his pulse quicken from where she lay, and when she reached out and laid a hand on his chest, her fingers pressing against the mat of fine hairs and flesh that showed at the top of his shirt, she felt his immediate physical response. _It's been that long for you, has it?_ He stared at her, as unmoving as if she had turned him to stone, and she moved closer, her lips just a hair's breadth away from his now. Since she had met no resistance, she let her hand slip deeper under his shirt, her palm spreading across the firm muscles of his chest, which began to quiver almost imperceptibly. "We'll have to remedy that."

She kissed him then, because she knew she had him, and felt him respond immediately, his arms wrapping around her. He clasped her to him with the kind of raw need…for human contact, for life…that a person can only feel after they've stared death in the face, and she responded with equal zeal, pulling him back with her onto the pallet and hitching her skirts as he fumbled with the laces of his breeches, trying to be quiet despite the urgency.

When it was done, Brim smoothed her clothes back down and snuggled into his chest, falling asleep with a smile on her face. And when she woke, late in the morning but well before him, she extricated herself quietly so as not to wake him, picked up her gear, and left without a sound. She would go and have a look at this Whiterun place, at least. It was possibly too soon to risk getting nicked by the city guard, but she could scout it out all the same. She had no intention of walking into anywhere as formal as a nobleman's keep, which is what she assumed a Jarl entailed, but a city was better than a village for hiding, and she could get some information and the lay of the land there. Or at least find a few things worth pinching before she headed up to Windhelm.

* * *

_I know someone was hoping for Hadvar, but Ralof made a lot more sense given the situation and the plot bunnies insisted. I should also note that the T rating for this story is for violence and sexual themes, but I'm a "fade to black" kind of writer when it comes to sex. I blame my neo-Victorian upbringing, and I always think that the stuff you have to imagine on that vein is more fun than the stuff that's actually written down._


	5. CHAPTER 4: Priorities

The Palace of the Kings was in uproar by the time Ulfric Stormcloak arrived, word of his homecoming having spread quickly from the sentries on the walls. Breakfast had been in process, and so the kitcheners were rapidly clearing the tables as other servants hurried to assist him into the hall. He waved them curtly away. They meant well, but he was in no mood to be coddled. Not when he had left Windhelm with a score of soldiers and returned with only three. _Three_, he thought, scowling to himself as he felt his fists clench involuntarily. And that was not even the worst of it.

"Ulfric," a familiar guttural voice said, and he looked up to find Galmar Stone-Fist, faithful general and friend of a lifetime by now, standing before him with an expression of deep concern etched onto his scarred face. He could barely look his old friend in the eye, shaking his head. Instead, he turned to his steward, who hovered a few feet away, waiting for the word that would send him to whatever task was required. _A good man,_Ulfric thought, before his expression hardened. _But then, I thought I had surrounded myself with nothing but good men._

"See to it that these soldiers here are taken care of. Make sure they receive the best medical attention and food we can provide, and double their pay. They've earned it. Then, come speak with me. We have much to do."

"At once, my lord," Jorleif replied with a quick bow and moved immediately towards the exhausted soldiers who were still waiting near the entrance, while Ulfric turned and hurried stiffly towards his war-room. He heard Galmar fall in close behind him, wisely deciding to hold all questions until they were alone.

He had never seriously believed that he would die in Helgen. No, there was too much ahead of him, too much left unfinished. Failure was not the fate that Talos had ordained for Ulfric Stormcloak. He had prayed with every fiber of his being as he watched his men filed before the headsman's block, and the gods had answered, albeit in much grander way than anyone could have expected. The dragon's huge, hideous visage was seared into his memory for all time. _Alduin, Bane of Kings, ancient shadow unbound, with a hunger to swallow the world._ There was no doubt in Ulfric's mind. War and family duty had called him away from his studies at High Hrothgar, but in the hidden part of him that was still attuned to the Voice, he could detect the shift like the deepest notes of a drum that had to be felt rather than heard.

"Close the door," he told his housecarl as they reached the relative privacy of the war-room. Only then, did he let himself sink, painfully, into a chair. There was no part of his body that did not hurt in some way, but he had taken a stray arrow in the thigh as they fought their way free of the frenzy in Helgen and the barbed head was still buried in his flesh. Blood oozed from the wound when he shifted his weight, dampening his already gore-stiffened breeches. At least the cold had prevented it from suppurating quickly and taking the wound-fever.

"Let me send for your healer," Galmar urged, and Ulfric shook his head.

"Let him tend to the others first. This isn't a dangerous wound, and a good Jarl makes sure his men are seen to first. How else are they supposed to risk their lives for me?"

"What happened? What reports we heard don't make sense." Galmar asked, cautiously. To most, the old soldier seemed to be a rough brute of a man and no more, but Ulfric had known him long enough by now to realize that the mind behind his brutish exterior was just as sharp as the axe he carried. _If there's anyone I can trust, old friend_, he thought, and shook his head.

"We were ambushed at Darkwater Crossing. They knew _exactly_ where we were going to be." Ulfric could hear the bitter growl begin in his own voice and stopped himself for a moment. Even to Galmar, he would not admit what was really going through his mind. _I was forced to surrender_. _To _Tullius_, of all people._ It had been the right decision at the time, and circumstances had borne him out, but it still galled him, grating at his pride in the same way that the arrowhead in his leg grated into his flesh. After a moment, he continued, his composure regained. "They were set to take us to Cyrodiil, but diverted to Helgen at the last moment. I suppose Tullius didn't want to risk the rest of the journey after the escape attempts."

"Coward," Galmar remarked, his lip curling, and Ulfric nodded, gratified by his friend's assessment. He would have slaughtered the Imperial general if the man had ever deigned to go toe to toe in combat like a honorable soldier, of that Ulfric had no doubt. Tullius had used his superior numbers and Ulfric's concern for his own men as a shield. A tactic for a weak man to be sure, but no one could deny that it had worked.

"The dragon attacked during the executions. We were able to use the chaos to get away. Those that you saw are all that survived."

"A dragon." Galmar replied, his voice trailing off. Ulfric could see the surprise, and then the unease building in the man's eyes. How long had it been since he had seen Galmar Stone-Fist uneasy about something? "Then the legends are true."

"Of course, they are," Ulfric scoffed in return, and tried to ease himself up again. Galmar was there in an instant, grasping his arm to help him, as he straightened and sighed, his body protesting the move mightily. _The legends _are _true. And that complicates things. _"We have a great deal of planning to do."

"You should rest first." Though they had been friends for far too long to stand on ceremony, it was not often that Galmar exerted the privileges that a lifetime of familiarity engendered. Ulfric could see that his old friend would not take "no" for an answer now, though, and in his innermost thoughts he was grateful for that. It was a rare breed of loyalty these days, and he was going to need that for what was to come more than ever before.

"We're getting too old for this, you know," he remarked, as he began the slow hobble towards the stairs, and saw the housecarl grin, old bear that he was.

"Never. Not until they put me in the ground and pile the stones over me."

"Tell Jorlief to send the healer up when he's finished and a servant with water and food. A few hours of sleep should see me through, and then we need to get to work."

"Should I gather the council?" The question hung in the air as Ulfric reached the doorway and paused.

"No. It's up to the two of us alone from now on," he replied and saw Galmar cock his head slightly at that, dark grey eyes going serious. Typically, the Jarl's privy council included the housecarl, the steward, the court mage, and a few other notables from the hold or the Stormcloak forces. They were supposed to advise the Jarl and maintain utmost secrecy, and they always had. Until now. It was too much of a coincidence that Tullius had known precisely what Ulfric's travel route and escort strength had been, with enough lead time to make an appearance there himself as well. There was only one explanation. Ulfric's fingers gripped the archway of the stairwell angrily, the stone scraping under his fingers as he looked into his old comrade's eyes. "Someone has betrayed us. Someone in my inner circle. I don't know which one of the bastards it is yet, but, by Talos, I _will _find out. And Oblivion will seem like a welcoming embrace when I'm finished with him."

~~0~~

Whiterun was turning out to be more of a tangle than Brim had reckoned on. She had watched the road from an overlooking ridge for half an hour or so, noting the guard patrols as the meandered between the outlying houses and farms. They seemed alert, but did not appear to be searching for anything particularly. Finally, she had decided to try her luck, and had gotten all the way up to the gates before anyone stopped her.

"No visitors allowed into Whiterun today on account of the dragons about," the gate guard told her. After she had put on her best earnest expression and dropped a mention of Gerdur's request, they grudgingly agreed to let her in. With an escort.

"We'll be keeping an eye on you," the guard had warned her, suspiciously, as if she might be in league with the great flapping monster that had evidently darkened their skies as well. _Too twitchy, this lot_, she thought as she was hurried along the high street and through the market. She had planned to do a little freelancing and be gone before anyone was the wiser, but even the common folk seemed to be on their toes today. She didn't know the place well enough to ditch the guard they had stuck her with, so she might as well just deliver the message, make a few discreet inquiries in the inns, and head back to Riverwood before anyone turned up looking for escaped prisoners. If she was lucky, this Jarl would take after the nobles down in the City and be too important to look closely at someone like Brim.

The city, such as it was, rose up around her in fortified concentric terraces, each grander than the last. At the very top of the tor stood a huge hall, which seemed to be where the guard was taking her. While the whole place was much bigger than the pokey village she had just come from, it was hardly what Brim would have called a city by Cyrodiilic standards. The architecture was distinctly foreign to her, all intricately carved wood beams and peaked roofs and hardly a stone edifice in sight. Except for being primarily strapping Nord types, the people seemed much the same, though. _The common muck looks the same everywhere_, Brim guessed and smiled to herself. A few modifications in the way she wore her hair and clothes and she could blend right in, provided she kept her mouth shut. The peculiar lilting accent that was being spoken around her would take some getting used to before she could reproduce it passably.

The hall seemed even more immense from the inside, and better lit and furnished than she had guessed it would be. Rib-like wooden arches supported a vaulted ceiling, and she could see the figures of intricately carved men and dragons in the rafters. The guard, his errand done, left her in the foyer after dropping a brief explanation of why she was there to his cronies at the door. She considered ducking back outside, but that would look suspicious. Before she could make up her mind, she heard the metallic _shink _of a sword being drawn and looked up to see an armored, sharp-featured Dunmer woman, her greyish blue skin making a surprising contrast with her tightly bound mop of rust red hair, looking displeased as she approached. _Oh, hells, not again_. Brim shifted backwards cautiously, clasping her hands in front of her, just close enough to her sword to be able to reach it in time if this was an attack and far enough away that it would not look like she was going for her weapon.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" the Dunmer growled, in a far more cultured voice than Brim would have expected. "The Jarl is not accepting visitors."

_That's an awful big blade to be waving in the face of a potential visitor_, Brim wanted to say, relieved that she did not appear to have been recognized after all, but wisely held her tongue. Conjuring up the "good citizen" act that had gotten her past the gate guards, she answered, "If'n you please, I've just come from Helgen and Riverwood and . . ."

"You were at Helgen?" The Dunmer woman's demeanor changed immediately and she sheathed her sword without so much as an apology. _No manners at all up here, I tell you_. "That explains why the guards let you in. Jarl Balgruuf will want to speak with you personally. Come with me."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to bother his lordship personally, your honor. Gerdur of Riverwood just . . ." But the Dunmer had already turned and started towards the back of the hall. At a hard glance from the guards, Brim sighed and followed. If the common muck was just the same everywhere no matter where you went, then hopefully the nobles were, too. She arranged her face in a display of suitable humility and awe.

The Jarl of Whiterun reclined in an ornate chair on a dais just past the tables that lined the hall's great oblong firepit. To Brim's surprise, the huge skull of a dragon hung on the wall perhaps ten feet over his head. _Well, then, I suppose you _are_ the chap to talk to about dragons. _He was a man of middle years, tall and fair like many of the Nords she had known. His blond beard was simply knotted at the bottom, most likely for comfort, and the eyes that looked out of his time-worn face were a bright, pale blue. The amount of gold evident on his person alone made Brim's brain spin with calculations of wealth, but the thick ropes of muscle and sinew on the man's arms and the heavy axe that leaned within easy reach of his right hand indicated that this was no overgrown milk-sop of inherited title and wealth. This was proper nobility, the kind that had actually raised a sword in battle before and probably still could, and that was a different kettle of fish entirely. Brim bowed slightly and touched her forehead in a gesture of honest respect as she approached.

Some sort of argument had been going on between Balgruuf, a large man that looked like he might be a relative of the Jarl's, and a short, balding Imperial that looked so prig-nosed that Brim immediately took to thinking of him as "the Weasel". The Dunmer swordswoman stepped up onto the dais and said something low to the Jarl, who sat up from his conversation-weary slump immediately.

"So, you were at Helgen," he began, his tone cautious as his gaze moved over Brim with new interest. "You saw this dragon with your own eyes?"

"Aye, m'lord. Big black beast, it was. Left the place in a right state and, last I saw, it looked to be headed in your direction. Mistress Gerdur of Riverwood sent me along to warn you."

"By Ysmir, Irileth was right," Balgruuf exclaimed, frowning. He cast a triumphant expression at the Weasel to his right. "Well, Proventus, do you still think we should trust in the strength of our walls? With a dragon about?"

"My lord, we should send troops to protect Riverwood at once," the swordswoman urged. The Weasel seemed to take exception to this, but his bleats of protest were cut short.

"I won't stand idly by while a dragon burns down my hold and slaughters my people," the Jarl reproached strongly, tone wavering close to anger. _You tell him, your lordship, _Brim thought and suppressed a grin at the weaselly little man's expense. The man backed off, disgruntled, as the Jarl delivered a few quick orders to the swordswoman, who saluted and hurried off at a military clip.

"I should return to my duties," the Weasel said stiffly.

"That would be best," the Jarl replied, the growl in his voice subsiding as he watched his advisor leave. Brim was poised to bow and hurry away herself, but Balgruuf turned next to her. "As for you, well done. You've done a service for Whiterun, as a foreigner no less, and I will not forget it. Were you one of the soldiers stationed at Helgen?"

Her mind flashed quickly through possible answers. No one would believe she was a local with her fresh-from-the-south accent and she didn't want to take a guess about which side of the conflict this man was on. Finally, she settled on a compromise.

"A mercenary, m'lord. Just passing, though."

"You have the look, I should have guessed," the Jarl replied, with a grunt of assent. His expression went thoughtful, and he nodded.

"As a reward for your service, I will have Proventus provide you with new armor from my armory before you leave. It will, perhaps, help you recover whatever you may have lost at Helgen," he said, and then rose. "If you are looking for contracts in Skyrim, there is a further task I could ask of you. Suitable for someone of your particular talents, perhaps."

At that moment, Brim wanted nothing more than to be back outside and hunting down a good tavern, but she scented the possibility of gold and her pockets were too light at the moment to turn down the opportunity. When she did not protest, the Jarl stepped down from his dais and started towards a room that adjoined the main hall, as if expecting her to fall in beside him. She did, awkwardly, making sure to keep a respectful distance. Still, she was beginning to like this Balgruuf. He wasn't too proud to sully his own hands with the likes of her, and she found that to be a novel trait among society's great and good.

The side room was warm, well-lit, and filled with a collection of maps, scrolls, books, and arcane instruments of the sort that Brim could not identify. _Bloody wizards_, she thought, because she was certain that no other type of person would work in a place like this. Her dislike of mages and other magical sorts had been cemented early on in her professional career when she had learned that almost all mages were paranoid about other mages stealing their research and that it was damned difficult to break into the house of someone who rarely left their laboratory and cast fire wards in front of practically every door and window.

The purple-robed mage that was leaning over the table in the center of the room looked up and straightened, bowing a greeting to his Jarl.

"Farengar, I believe I've found you an assistant to help with your . . . project," Balgruuf stated.

Brim guessed by the slight hesitation in the Jarl's voice that he didn't really understand what the mage was up to either. Well, on the whole, she wasn't paid to understand, just to do and that was how she liked it. The mage Farengar looked Brim up and down and cleared his throat.

"Ah. Yes. I have been researching our dragon problem," he began. By his voice and face, she could tell he was young for the position he held, younger than most wizarding types she had met, and knew it, but he spoke with the same precise, lecturing tone of superiority, like someone who no longer talked, only expounded. "And I could use someone to fetch something for me. Well, delve into an ancient ruin and procure an object that may or may not be there, at least."

_Not a bleeding chance_, Brim thought, immediately, but listened politely enough. She nodded from time to time, as the mage described the object . . .some sort of stone tablet called the Dragonstone . . . and told her where she could, ostensibly, find it. Bleak Falls Barrow was not far at all from Riverwood. Ralof had pointed out its skeletal arches on the side of a mountain during their scurry for safety after Helgen. Brim's specialty was acquiring difficult things, and she might have considered it under different circumstances, but she was not equipped for something as risky as what the mage was describing at the moment. Aside from the problem of no longer having the Guild's resources behind her, she had been forced to abandon most of her gear and possession in a rush back in Cyrodiil and everything she had brought had been lost when she was captured. Still, she would keep the job in her back pocket. Once she had worked her way back up a notch or so, it could be lucrative. A noble of this caliber would be a good ally to have, and she doubted there were many people lining up to wander around an old tomb or they would have hired someone already.

"This is a priority," the Jarl told her seriously. "Do this, and you will be well rewarded."

"Of course, m'lord," Brim replied, with a respectful smile. Once she was dismissed, with the addition of a rather well-made set of new leather armor for her trouble, and descending the many stairs that lead up to the keep, she shuffled the information immediately to the back of her mind. She knew what her priorities were and, while making coin was high on that list, staying alive was at the top. The job could wait.

~~0~~

"How was Whiterun? Did anyone recognize you?" Ralof asked her, seriously, later that evening. By the time Brim arrived back in the village, a contingent of additional guards were already patrolling the muddy roads and that seemed to have put Gerdur at greater ease. After a hearty meal, Brim had nabbed her fellow fugitive and took him down to the Sleeping Giant Inn, the village's one and only tavern, for the evening. Ralof still looked around like a hunted animal, but, after hardly anyone in Whiterun had taken a second glance at her and not a single soldier in Legion armor came into view, Brim had greater confidence that no one was out looking for them. Not her, anyway. Or not yet.

"Locked down tighter than the Empress' chastity belt, that place," Brim observed, as she plunked a couple of bottles of ale down on the table and settled in beside the big Nord. The inn was pleasantly warm and busy enough without being crowded, though she could hear the proprietress braking orders at the barman in the background like a military sergeant. The bard, a vain-looking young man who stuck out from the brawny sawmill workers around him like a peacock among pigeons, wasn't half bad, even though Brim had never heard any of the songs he sung. She raised her bottle to Ralof and took a long drink. "And, no, not a single Legion swad in sight, so I'm thinking a few escaped prisoners are the least of anyone's worries right now."

Ralof nodded and sipped his own ale, glancing around at the other patrons to make sure they were not being overheard.

"Gerdur said a patrol of soldiers rode through town this morning and asked a few questions about Stormcloaks, but didn't stay long. I hope that's a sign that Jarl Ulfric and the others weren't recaptured."

"Speaking of," Brim started, remembering, because it was time to look to the practical future now that her errand of good-will to Whiterun had been completed, "we need to get you back to your people."

"I'm going to lay low for a while. With the Legion in an uproar around Helgen, I don't want to risk slipping across the border into the Rift or Eastmarch until things have settled down." He looked over at her with a tentative smile, "You could stay. Gerdur could find some work with the mill to keep you occupied until the roads are calm enough."

Brim raised an eyebrow at him in amusement at the thought of herself as a mill worker, though she sighed inwardly. She liked the scruffy Nord, but he seemed to have gotten the wrong impression from their brief tumble the previous night. Still, no need to hurt the man's feelings.

"That sounds just fine, but I need to get on up to Windhelm," she replied, kindly, and searched for a suitable lie. "I'd planned to visit my sister there anyway and wrote ahead. She's probably in a right state of worry by now."

Ralof looked disappointed, but he nodded anyway. "Understandable. Gerdur worries herself sick about me, I know how it can be. You should take the coach from Whiterun, then. It'll be fastest. I normally go to the Candlehearth in the evenings when I'm in town up there, the owner is a friend. If you let her know where you're staying, I'll look in on you when I'm able to get back."

Later, as they made their way back to the family's house, the windows glowing in the darkness like beacons, he stopped her just outside of the low gate and reached out to run his hands amorously around her waist and pull her close to him. Brim allowed it, though she prepared herself to wriggle away if he was about to say something foolish.

"It might be a week or two before I can make it up to the city," he murmured, lowly, with a less than subtle hint in his voice. Brim smiled at him in the darkness, though she couldn't help but laugh a little on the inside. Feed a dog and you can bet he'll hang around your yard for more, that's what Mama had always said to her girls. _Why not?, _she thought and played along with the seduction, letting him draw her into the deeper shadows of the yard, his hands already roving as he pressed her back against the sturdy stone wall of the house. Likely enough, she wouldn't see him again after tonight anyway.

She rose early the next morning, thanked Gerdur and her husband for their hospitality before they headed down to the mill, and dropped a peck on the cheek and a wink at Ralof as he walked her out to the yard gate. The big soldier seemed to be reluctant to let her travel alone, but prudence won out. Whistling, in a finer mood than she had been in in days thanks to the warmth of the day and the knowledge that she had probably gotten off a free thief once again, she made her way down the twisting mountain road to the Whiterun stables. A few hours later, she was jouncing along towards the north in a wagon with two old biddies on their way to visit an ailing sister, an overzealous-looking young man who was set to join the Stormcloak army, various parcels and packages, and a cage of four squawking chickens.

It had been years now since she had had a letter from Evylie, but Brim had no doubt that her sister would take her in anyway. It would be nice to see her and the child and possibly even little Tobie, who would be just about manly by now. And then she could start the long process of getting her life back on track in exile. Cyrodiil would be closed to her for some time to come until things blew over, but Skyrim . . .despite the dragons, it looked ripe for the plucking.


	6. CHAPTER 5: A Change of Plans

If the Imperial City was the ideal benchmark by which all other places were to be judged, Brim thought that Windhelm seemed like a vision from the capitol's blasted future. As the cart slalomed down the well-worn road out of the mountains and into an expansive river valley, she could see the ancient walls rising up ahead. Even at this distance, the city showed its age and she could see the scattered detritus of ancient human constructions that rose from the ground like bones in a forgotten graveyard. Even the clouds that hung over the city seemed old and threatening, the ravens wheeling overhead against a steel grey sky. _Evylie lives here, _Brim found herself asking? She could not imagine her sister, who had loved the sun, being happy in a place like this.

From the moment she disembarked in the stable yard among a rabble of merchants, reuniting family members, and spirited soldier hopefuls, Brim was left with the impression of too many people in too small a space. At first, she had thought that Windhelm, like Whiterun, had been built on a rise in the landscape. As she entered the gates and took the lay of the land, the countless memorial plaques and broken, sightless statues that dotted the city, she realized that this was an illusion. The city, as it was now, had simply been built and rebuilt upon the ruins of more glorious pasts. _There are enough bones beneath these cobblestones to fill this place with a legion of ghosts for every living person here_, she thought, uncomfortably.

More to her growing dismay, no one seemed to know the name Evyline Stroud. As she struggled to keep the attention of various patrons at the inn long enough to wheedle information from them, she racked her brain for anything from Evylie's letters that might jog their memory.

"She's a tall lady, southern lady. Dark hair and green eyes, like mine. Smiles too much, probably. Anyone?" she tried again, as the men hovering over their drinks this early in the afternoon regarded her with silent, half-hostile expression. "Married a soldier from these parts . . . what was his bloody name? Ivar, that was it. They have a little girl . . ."

When she got no reply in at the inn, she went back out onto the streets and wandered the crumbling maze of neighborhoods to see if she could recognize any landmarks, anything that Evylie might have described. The wind was turning chilly as the sun sank towards the horizon and Brim was starting to get worried. Finally, she approached a ragged-looking man who shuffled down the other side of the street. He looked to be in the prime of life, otherwise healthy and whole, but she could tell by the way he moved that he had difficulty moving far without pain. An injury or illness that had cost him his livelihood, maybe. His type were a septim a dozen in the City, survivors of the Great War that had been left irreparably damaged in either their bodies or minds or both, with nowhere to go but the streets. Still, Brim had a healthy respect for the street folk. They often knew more about a city and its people than anyone else.

He regarded her with some suspicion as she approached, but need won out over whatever prejudice the Nord might have against her Imperial looks.

"Spare a coin for a veteran?" he asked, hopefully, and she fished a coin out of her pocket with smile.

"What's your name, friend?"

"Angrenor," he replied, and his expression relaxed slightly from gratitude. "Divines bless your kind heart. This is the difference between food and going hungry for me tonight."

"Don't mention it. What's your story then, Angrenor?" she asked, and he grimaced.

"I was one of the best soldiers in the Stormcloak army before I took a sword through the chest, a year or two ago now. Lost most of the use of my sword arm. Haven't been able to work since."

Brim nodded sympathetically and looked around.

"So, you've been here awhile. Maybe you can help me, then." She described Evylie as she remembered her sister, and was disheartened to see the veteran shake his head until she mentioned Evylie's Nord husband.

"Ivar . . .," the beggar said, his ears pricking. "The only Ivar I know died in battle a year or so ago. Or, at least he went out with his unit of Stormcloaks and never returned. If you're looking for him, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news."

"Do you know where he lived?" Brim asked intensely, eager for the first good lead she had had all day.

"Aye," the beggar replied and directed her to the house. Brim thanked him and pressed a further few coins on him for his trouble before hurrying off at a jog. The address seemed to be on the shabby end of the respectable side of town, a stone and wood-beam construction that looked like it could easily do with some repairs. An old woman with a thinning scraggle of white hair and rheumy eyes answered at Brim's hopeful knock.

"Evyline . . ." the crone mused, and then nodded slowly. "Aye, I remember now. I lived down the road before we moved here. Imperial girl, pretty thing. Died a few years back, left her husband and that poor child alone in the world."

Brim's heart fell into her stomach. _That's why the letters stopped coming_. For a while, Brim had thought her sister had simply gotten busy with life. She hadn't begrudged that to Evylie, and she had even been prepared to face Evylie's disappointment in her if that was the reason. But she had never thought to prepare herself for this. Why hadn't her husband or Tobie written?

'Was there a boy that lived with them? Tobias? What about the little girl?" Brim asked, quickly, as a dreadful thought suddenly sprang to mind. The crone eyed her curiously now, with more than a hint of suspicion, but shook her head and sighed as she tried to rub some warmth back into her skinny arms from the cool evening air.

"Can't say about the boy. All's I know is that Talos took the poor mite's father up to Sovngarde soon after, or so they say. Maybe he just found his solace in the bottom of a bottle somewhere, I don't rightly know. Never heard what happened to the child. Expect she went on to some other family somewhere."

Dispirited, Brim thanked the old woman and let her shuffle inside to the comfort of her hearth at last before turning to trudge back towards to the main town square in a near sightless daze. Evylie was gone. Tobie was as good as gone. If he was still alive, she had no idea where to even begin to look for him. _I'm alone_. It was a disconcerting, terrifying feeling. After her parents had died, she had not been alone. There had been her brothers and sisters and Uncle Renald, and finally the Guild. Even after Victorine had shunned her for her wantonness and Uncle Renald had followed Papa down into an anonymous convict's grave somewhere, she had not been alone. The Guild had been there, and the knowledge that Evylie and Tobie were still out in the world somewhere was enough. Now, with the Guild irretrievably far behind her and the last of the people she had loved, and who had bothered to care about her, gone without a trace, Brim could feel the crushing pressure of a much darker and more frightening world squeezing around her like a fist. It nearly took the breath from her lungs.

The market place traffic was filtering away by the time she reached the main plaza, and she stood and tried to think of what to do next. She would have to find somewhere to sleep tonight. And tomorrow? Her mind could not focus on something that far away just yet.

"Hey," a voice said and she turned to see the beggar she had spoken to earlier limping up to her. He smiled and then his expression softened in concern as he noticed the look on her face. "Did you find your sister?"

She drew in a hiss of breath between her teeth and sighed it back out a gain, shaking her head.

"No. She's passed on."

"Sorry to hear that," Angrenor replied, as if he meant it. He screwed up his face for a moment as if in thought. "Ivar had a little girl, as I recall. Your sister's child, too?"

"Aye, at least I think so. She seems to have vanished into thin air, too."

"I think I can help you there," he said, breaking into a smile, "Come on."

Not expecting much, but too raw from the loss not to clench at the slightest hope, Brim followed the old veteran through the plaza and another set of stone arches. He stopped next to a large iron brazier that burned in the wide space of a second square that lay in front of a huge stone building and pointed.

"There," he said, and Brim peered among the people to notice a girl of maybe eight or nine years old. The dress she wore was of a dark material and ragged, and she carried an equally ragged-looking basket with bunches of hand-picked wildflowers in it. Her pale, dirt-streaked face was turned up hopefully to the adults that passed by her with barely a notice. "That's Ivar's girl, I think. Poor thing. I give her a coin or two out of my takings when I can, she doesn't have much else."

Brim stared at the child, her heart accelerating wildly. From this distance, it could be possible. The child's brown hair was perhaps a little lighter than Evylie's had been, but the wiry build, the shape of the face seemed right.

"Thank you," she told Angrenor, but he stopped her before she could reach to give him another coin.

"Get her off of the street. That's charity enough."

She gave him a brief smile and then hurried across the plaza, slowing as she approached the girl. From this angle, the resemblance was undeniable. The child's face was a small reworking of Evylie's, the sharp Imperial features muted a little by her heavier Nord blood, though she still had the wide, high cheekbones of a Stroud. The girl looked up at Brim with blue eyes that spoke of desperation. The eyes were different, but Brim could see the ghost of her sister's much younger self staring out of them all the same.

"Would you like to buy a flower? Please?' the girl asked, and Brim knelt down, her head spinning, to be at eye level with the child.

"What have you got there?" Brim asked, trying to keep her voice steady. Eagerly, the girl began to pull bunches of flowers out of her basket to show her. Brim listened, unable to pull her gaze away. _You're Evylie's, and no mistake_. _You're my niece_. Finally, she picked up a spray of blue and purple flowers, fingering it as she tried to stop herself from gawking. "What's your name?"

"Sofie," the girl replied, her face still frozen in an expression of hope. _Mama's name, _Brim thought nodding. That clenched it.

"That's a fine name. What are you doing out here in the cold, Sofie?"

The girl stepped back slightly, her look going sad and embarrassed.

"I sell flowers to try and buy good. My mama died when I was little, and papa was a Stormcloak soldier. One day, he just never came back. I'm alone, but I try to do the best I can."

"Do you have any other family? Your papa's people, maybe?" Brim asked, her chest tightening as the too-familiar hurt in the girl's voice struck a deeply buried nerve, and Sofie shook her lowered head. Her chestnut locks fell like a tangled curtain to hide her face. _So, that means Tobie isn't here somewhere_, Brim thought. No Stroud would abandoned family like this. Not even Victorine would be that cruel, she had at least waited till Brim grown to cut her loose completely. Brim looked around. Darkness was falling and something had to be done. There was no way now that Brim could just send the urchin back off into the city with a coin and a pat on the head. Not after what she had already lost today.

"Your mama's name was Evyline, wasn't it? And your papa was Ivar?" she asked, and the girl's head shot up, her eyes widening.

"How did you know?"

Brim stood and tried to smile, holding out her hand.

"Your mama was my big sister. I'm your Auntie Brim. Come on, kitten, let's get you something to eat. I'm fair hungry myself."

Hesitantly, the girl took her hand and Brim walked with her back towards the Candlehearth Inn. It wasn't much comfort, and it raised a lot more problems than it solved, but this was something. Brim was in no position to offer real safety or shelter, but at least neither of them would have to be alone for tonight.

~~0~~

In the candlelight of the inn, Sofie ate as if it had been months since her last full meal and Brim had no doubt that that was probably the case. She paid the innkeeper the gold required to fill their bellies and enough for a room for the night besides. After a day like today, it was worth the expense. Brim had been fortunate herself when she was that age. After Papa died, Uncle Renald had stepped into the breach, old reprobate that he was. No doubt he had made a killing off of her clever fingers until she was old enough to move on from urchin work, but he had been paternal enough to see that she was fed, sheltered, and protected, and he had taught her the craft well enough that she had been able to step into his place after he had been pinched. Sofie had not been even that lucky, it seemed.

"Do you remember Tobie? He'd be your uncle, your mama's and my brother. Do you know what happened to him?" Brim asked, as they ate. The girl nodded and swallowed a huge bite of stew.

"He and Papa had an argument before . . . before Papa left. He said he wanted to join the Legion, and Papa said he was an ungrateful milkdrinker, and Tobie went away. He didn't even say goodbye."

Brim nodded. She couldn't imagine poor, sensitive Tobie as a soldier, but time changed people and it was better than hearing that he was moldering in a grave somewhere along with Evylie. Once she got situated, she would make some inquiries and see if she could turn him up. If he hadn't been killed in the fighting, then they could figure all of this out together like old times.

"I'm sorry to hear about your mama. She was always my favorite. If I'd have known you were up here all alone, I'd have sent for you." _And then the kid would be alone down in the city instead_. But that was a different problem.

"I don't remember much about her," Sofie said, sadly, and then looked up with an achingly hopeful expression, "Am I going to live with you now, Auntie Brim?"

Brim pursed her lips and considered this. She couldn't just leave the girl here. Small stranger that she was, she was still family. But Brim had enough problems to contend with without saddling herself with a child. She'd been out cutting purses on the street at Sofie's age, but Sofie didn't have either the constitution or the training for that. And Evylie wouldn't have wanted her daughter to follow in the family business.

"I don't know, kitten. We'll sort it out."

"I wouldn't be any trouble. I can cook and clean and . . ."

The piteousness of it all was just too much. Brim put on what she hoped was a comforting smile. The same smile, she reflected, that Uncle Renald had used on her long ago most likely.

"Don't worry yourself. What's an Auntie for if not to step in when you're in a pinch, eh? I'll take care of you, I just have to settle a few details."

This seemed to satisfy Sofie, who smiled. After they had each demolished a helping of apple pie, she took the girl up to the room she had rented and put her to bed. Brim had never seen herself as the maternal type, and it felt strange to play the adult role in this unexpected echo of her own childhood, but family was family. There wasn't much in Brim's cloudy moral worldview that was sacred, but you protected your own kin. No questions asked.

"I'm going to stay up and do a bit of thinking. In the morning, we'll see what's to be done about all this," she told Sofie. The girl slid into the narrow trundle bed and smiled as Brim went over to snuff out the candle.

"Auntie Brim?" she said, and Brim paused in the doorway, turning back to see her niece's eyes shining in the light from the hallway. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it, kitten. Go to sleep, now."

Brim closed the door behind her and leaned back against the wall, letting the back of her head fall onto the thick timbers with a muted thump as she stared up at the ceiling. _Your idea of a joke, is it?_ The Divines declined to answer, and so she sighed and checked her belt pouch. She had enough coin to last them a few days. It would take at least that long to get a decent haul in thieving without her Family contacts, what with the time necessary to pick a good mark, scope it out, and come up with a backup plan. She could fall back on kiddie cutpurse tricks in the meantime, but that wouldn't bring in nearly enough to set up housekeeping. Taking the girl on the road with her was out of the question.

There had been a Guild in Skyrim, anyone who knew what to look for could see the hidden signs, but they were old and out of maintenance. That meant that the Guild was either weak or had collapsed in on itself entirely, none of which boded well. If they still existed, they would be underground and hard to find. She could always hire herself out as a mercenary for the time being, though she found that sort of work distasteful. As a rule, she didn't shed her own blood for coin, though she was not opposed to shedding someone else's. As Brim pondered the options, the Whiterun job came to mind. The Jarl had promised a substantial reward if she was successful, not to mention anything valuable that might be lying around an old ruin that she could pick up and sell. Something like that could be just the leg up she needed.

_Well, m'lord, looks like you're going to get your Dragonstone after all_, Brim thought and headed back downstairs. She'd relieve a few drunks of their pocket money tonight, enough maybe to keep Sofie in bread and a warm bed somewhere for a week or two, and be off in the morning. It was a gamble, but a necessary one now. And the gods seemed inclined to weight the scales in her favor lately. _And I'm still the best thief in all of Cyrodiil_. _ I can do this. For Evylie._

In the morning, she struck a bargain with Elda Early-Dawn the innkeeper of the Candlehearth. For a pouch of gold and the promise that the girl would assist the cook, Sofie would be allowed to stay and have a pallet in the scullery and a hot meal at night until Brim returned. The girl trailed after her down to the stables and waited with a forlorn expression while Brim located a coach that was headed back to Whiterun.

"There, now," Brim said, finally, as the other passengers were loading their belongings into the wagon. With a grunt, she knelt down and chucked her niece under the chin. "What's that face all about, eh? I'll be back soon."

"That's what Papa said," Sofie replied, solemnly. She could see the fear and the disappointment in the child's face.

"But I'm making you a promise," Brim replied, laying her hands on Sofie's thin shoulders, and raising her eyebrows, "If you make someone a promise, you have to keep it. Those are the rules. And we're family now. Strouds always come back for family."

The girl smiled thinly, and Brim rose and dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.

"Get along with you then. I'll be back soon, and we'll get ourselves a proper home, you and me. And I might see fit to bring some young lady a present, if she's well behaved for Elda and doesn't raise a fuss."

Sofie's smile broadened then and Brim winked at her before turning and climbing up to join the other passengers on the waiting coach. A few minutes later, she heard the snap of the driver's reins and the cart jolted forward. Windhelm receded into the distance. Brim was not blind to the fact that she had spoken to Sofie with her own father's words. _I _will_ come back_, she told herself, fiercely, and then turned her thoughts to the task ahead. One problem at a time.

~~0~~

On a jagged mountain peak, high above the green, brown, and white patchwork that was Skyrim, an enormous black dragon roosted and gazed out over the world. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed. It was the land He remembered, but it was not the land He remembered either. Man and mer had taken over, insects infesting it with their wretched little hives. No glorious wings rode the winds of Skyrim any longer, save now His own. Their Voices had gone silent. Except for one.

Alduin flexed His great, sharp claws, carving gouges into the stone as He listened to the world, searching and sifting for the one that had drawn His attention almost as soon as He had exploded from the time scar at the Throat of the World. The limitations of this flesh disturbed Him still, but a more magnificent prison He could not have asked for. There were other Voices, faint ones, but they were mere affectations and meaningless babble. What He had sensed among that earlier conflagration of pretentious mortals was a true Voice, though young and not yet fully-formed; the infant aspect of a greater power wrapped inside of a dragon-like mind, though on a much smaller scale. _Abomination_. _Or . . . salvation? Ahhh, Akatosh, brother-father god, You have blundered._

Whatever it was, it was beyond the reaches of His senses now. Curled in on itself, hiding. It would emerge soon enough, and there were other matters to contend with until then. As surely as the land had changed, He felt the change in Himself, the maturation of pride, the upsurge of ravenousness, the reorganization of constituent elements and forces to pull Him into harmony with this most affronting and intriguing future. The novelty of this flesh prison had intoxicated Him before, and He could see that that had been His mistake. It would not be repeated.

Unfurling His wings, He launched himself into space and caught the air currents, gliding like a deathly shadow over the world below. A plan was rapidly forming in his ancient, immortal mind. This incarnation would need allies to complete its purpose. He could sense the frozen souls of the dead dragons waiting beneath the earth, like the small flames of candles in a darkened room, and He wheeled in the sky towards the nearest. _I will have my revenge for the outrage these mortals have visited upon Me. And I will be free of You, Akatosh. At last._

* * *

_One thing I wanted to play with in this piece, aside from a more morally ambiguous Dragonborn, was the gods. The TES cosmology is pretty cool and involved if you really get into reading it, so I thought exploring the divine drama of the Skyrim questline might be an interesting parallel plot as well. I don't plan on going way deep into the obscure lore and arguments about how the gods work, this is just my interpretation + a few plot appropriate machinations. Additionally, Sofie is one of the adoptable Hearthfire kids for those of you who may not have the expansion yet._

Also, thank you so much for the follows and reviews. It's great to know that people are reading and enjoying, and concrit is more than welcome.


	7. CHAPTER 6: Dragonborn

Inside the ruins of Bleak Falls Barrow, Brim fell back into her old habits like a hand fits into a tailored glove. Crypt looting had never been her particular game, but she supposed there was little enough difference between padding around a house in the dark and creeping through a disused catacomb. Except for the bones and the general musty smell of centuries old dust and decay, of course.

Already, the job was proving to be lucrative. She had gleaned a fair bit of gold, gemstones, and other valuable from the funerary urns, not to mention from the pockets of the bandits that had set up housekeeping in the cavernous foyer of the ruin. _They don't need it anymore_, she thought cheerfully as she moved carefully along the tunnels. What use had old bones for gold? And the bandits . . . well, Brim had permanently relieved all of their needs with a swift arrow between the shoulder blades apiece. She had never liked bandits. They lacked finesse, a disgrace to proper thieves everywhere.

Still, they were useful from time to time. The good thing about bandits was that you could usually get them to do the hard, dangerous work themselves, and then take the prize right out from under their noses. Most could be counted on to seriously overestimate their own cleverness, Brim knew from experience. Take their leader, for instance, that Dunmer fellow Arvel that she had killed a few chambers back. What sort of ninny wanders unprepared into a giant spider's lair and gets himself stuck in the webs? It was unprofessional. Furthermore, had he actually thought she would believe him . . . _him_, a bandit and a Dark Elf, of all people . . . when he had said he could help her find what she was looking for if she would just cut him down? If he had not been blocking the exact passageway she needed to get through, she would have cut his belt pouch and rucksack off of him and left him for the next giant spider to find on principle.

As it was, Brim had been merciful enough to cut his throat quickly before hacking him down and digging through his gear for the first of her two objectives in the Barrow: a curving claw-shaped gold ornament that looked like it had been modeled off of a bird of prey's talons or perhaps a dragon's. When she had stopped over at the local general store in Riverwood to pick up a bow and see if she could get good directions up to the Barrow, the Imperial trader that ran the place had practically fallen over himself to convince her to bring back a golden claw that had recently been stolen from him by the bandits that were hiding out up there. _This job keeps getting better and better_, she thought, pocketing the ornament. If the Riverwood trader didn't make it worth her while after all, she could always pinch it back when he wasn't looking and find a more generous trader to take it off of her hands.

The deeper she delved into the ruin, though, the more dangerous it became. The dead didn't sleep peacefully in Skyrim it seemed, for more than once Brim entered a catacomb chamber just in time to see the half-mummified corpse of a dead warrior rise from its crypt and turn an eerie, cold gaze on her, blue pin-points of fire where the eyes should have been. _Stendarr, Mara, aid me,_ she prayed as she hacked at the bones, scattering them into the dust, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end with fright and revulsion. _There's more riding on this than lining my pockets this time._

Finally, she arrived in a long hall, the walls intricately carved with pictures and writing that Brim could not make out clearly. At the end was a stone door of sorts, nearly round and bearing what appeared to be a series of three concentric, sliding stone rings around a central depression. The rings each had a series of symbols on them, and the depression was, itself, oddly shaped, with contours and pits that seemed somewhat familiar. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her and she pulled out the golden claw. It was a perfect match.

_So, that's what you were after_, she thought, remembering that Arvel's dying words had made reference to knowing how the claw "worked". It was then that she noticed the symbols carved into the palm side of the claw. Within a few seconds, she had aligned the concentric rings in the same pattern and placed the claw, giving it a swift turn in place like a key. Ancient tumblers clicked and released and the door groaned and grated as it slid down into the floor, revealing a large cavern beyond. The sound of running water was nearby, and she could see sunlight ahead, streaming down in shafts from the ceiling. _Finally_.

An underground river wound its way through the cavern, and Brim skirted it carefully, her sword and dagger drawn. The appearance of the restless dead had unnerved her more than she wanted to admit, and she was certain now that they could be hiding around any corner. Better safe than sorry. A tall stone dais stood at the back of the cave, and as she crept warily up and crested the top of the stone steps leading up to it, a bright glow caught the corner of her eye.

A portion of the cave wall had been carved into a roughly uniform, smooth semi-circle. Inscriptions in a language she could not even begin to understand spidered across the stone, but one set of symbols in particular glowed with an unearthly blue light, growing stronger as she approached. Brim gaped at it, unable to tear her eyes away though she had no idea what she was seeing, and felt something in the back of her mind stir in response to the symbols. It was as if she had seen them before somewhere, in a dream perhaps, but the meaning was just beyond the wall of her memory.

_Fus_, she sounded out in her mind, unable to account for how she knew that was what the symbol said, shaking her head as the glow brightened intensely and then went out suddenly like a snuffed out candle-flame. At the same moment, a crash erupted behind her and Brim whirled, coming on guard just in time to see a skeletal form rise from a decorative iron sarcophagus at the other end of the platform, clutching a sword that was longer than Brim was tall and bearing armor that looked like it had not seen the outside world in a thousand years. It surveyed her for a hair-raising moment, its ice-blue eyes as cold as Oblivion, and then rushed towards her, fleshless jaws open in an unearthly growl.

Brim ducked frantically to the side, slashing at the monstrosity's legs as it charged past her. She whirled to deliver a cut to its exposed vertebrae, sending a spray of bone fragments and rusty iron flying. The creature turned on her and brought its sword down in a diagonal arc, missing her head by a hair's breadth as she jumped back. The blade sang past her face with a deadly hiss and she could feel the unnatural, burning cold that radiated from the weapon on her skin. Even one blow from that would be death, Brim knew, and she threw herself desperately forward while the dead warrior was recovering momentum from the swing, knocking it further off balance. She stabbed her own short sword through an exposed gap in its armor, feeling it sink disturbingly into the open air between the creature's ribs. With every bit of strength she could muster, she twisted her body and wrenched the sword down as if it were a lever, hearing the chilling crack and snap of dry bones and the complaining screech of old metal as the dead warrior's chest and spine exploded inside its armor. The thing collapsed onto the ground, back facing her, and she dropped her blade long enough to frantically grasp the skull and fiendish horned helmet that adored it and twist. It snapped completely free of the neck and she threw it as far away from her as she could, shivering with revulsion and fear.

Silence fell over the cavern, as Brim stood, heaving for breath, among the dust motes that danced frenetically in the rays of daylight from the rift in the ground overhead. The skeletal warrior did not move, and she could see that the fire had gone out of its empty eye sockets from where the head lay, having rolled into the alcove of the inscribed wall. Her eyes searched cavern for any other attackers, but nothing moved. _Hells and damnation, _she thought, shakily, _that reward had better be worth it._ And she would not be doing any more grave-robbing jobs anytime soon, of that she was absolutely certain.

A quick examination of the sarcophagus revealed a stone tablet that perfectly fit the description she had received from the Jarl's wizard, as well as a small collection of grave goods that Brim appraised as being valuable and light enough to make it worth her while to cart them back. As an afterthought, she cautiously removed the greatsword from its owner's skeletal grasp as well. The blade seemed to radiate a powerful aura of cold and magic sold well everywhere. By her estimation, she had already collected more wealth from this one job than she would have from a week of pickpocketing, but then she had come very close to losing her head for the second time in one week, too. _As soon as this is over, I'm going back to proper thieving_, she thought, as she retraced her steps back out into the light of late afternoon. _It's safer_.

~~0~~

Whiterun was winding down for the evening by the time Brim arrived back at its gates. Men and women flooded through the market place towards their respective homes, the merchants taking advantage of the crowd to hawk the last wares of the day. Tired from the fight and slightly footsore from the walk down the mountain, Brim considered checking herself into an inn for the night and reporting in to the Jarl in the morning. There was enough daylight left, though, to see to the end of her contract and then she could, perhaps, splurge on a hot bath for herself as well. Even she was aware that she was beginning to smell rather ripe after the ordeal of the day.

As she made her way up through the city, she paused for a moment in a circular roundabout in the road, the center of which was dominated by the skeletal frame of an enormous half-dead tree. A temple to Kynareth, tidy and well-maintained, stood on the northwestern side next to the stairs that began the long ascent up to the Jarl's hall, but what caught Brim's attention was a man in golden robes standing in front of a large statue on the other side of the stairs, clockwise from the temple. He paced along the narrow alcove between the statue and the shallow water channel that bordered the roundabout, delivering a sermon at high volume that most of the passersby's seemed obliged to ignore, as if he were just another merchant crying his wares. Intrigued by the spectacle, and thinking that perhaps a short rest was not out of the question after all, Brim hopped the channel and took a seat on one of the benches.

"'Ere you ascended and the Eight became Nine, you walked among us, great Talos, not as god, but as man! But you were once man . . ." the priest shouted, his eyes lighting on Brim for an instant, shining with zealous eagerness. She gathered that it was not often that someone stopped to take notice.

Talos. Brim knew the name by mythology only, the Ninth God That Never Was, something that old folks whose youth had been spent before the Great War and the few Nords that had made their way through the Guild spoke about in hushed tones. Eagill had sworn by the name often enough, though she had not been curious enough at the time to ask why. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her palms, and listened.

"Even as man, great Talos cherished us. For he saw in us, in each of us, the future of Skyrim! The future of Tamriel! And there it is, friends! The ugly truth! We are the children of man! Talos is the true god of man!"

The priest was working himself up into a proper thunderous delivery now, and no mistake. Brim was aware of several guards stopping nearby to watch, warily, though no one got too close. _God of man, eh? She cast_ an appraising eye over the statue. It depicted a man in his middle years, obviously a warrior, wearing a winged helm. His expression was serene, almost meditative, though the sculptor had posed him with his foot crushing the throat of what appeared to be a snake-like monster. There was something in the face that seemed hauntingly familiar to Brim, but she could not quite place it. _All these sodding Nords look the same_, she thought, though the uneasy feeling persisted.

Still, she liked the idea of a man turned god. _Someone's got to stand up for us up there. Maybe that's why they chucked you out, for causing too much of a ruckus as us mortals are wont to do. _Brim smiled and stood, walking forward past the striding priest to drop a coin in the bowl in front of the statue without taking her eyes from the Divine's face. What did one ask for from the god of man? _The small things_, she thought. The things that only a mortal would appreciate. The needed last coin found in the bottom of the satchel. The dagger just within reach. The one right thing to say. _Send me those, _she asked, before turning to make the climb up to Dragonsreach. _The rest I can cope with on my own._

~~0~~

The servants in Dragonsreach were just setting up for the evening meal when Brim arrived, the Jarl and his advisors nowhere in evidence. Quickly, eager to retrieve her money and go, she hurried to the wizard's study, but slowed again as she heard voices within.

"The Jarl himself has finally taken an interest, so I'm now able to devote most of my time to this research," the mage was saying, cheerfully. Brim waited outside of his line of sight and peered in. She could just catch the figure of a woman in a brown hooded cloak and breeches bending over some papers and books on a desk. Nothing of her face was visible except well-formed lips and chin.

"Time is running out, Farengar, don't forget. This isn't some theoretical question. Dragons have come back," the woman replied, her voice low and smooth, and looked up. Her eyes were still hidden by the hood, but Brim watched her flick the book in front of her closed and stand upright. "You have a visitor."

Taking her cue, Brim stepped into the study and turned to the mage, though she kept a wary eye on his guest, like one cat spotting another from afar. _This isn't shady at all_, she thought sardonically, but kept her mouth shut.

"Ah, yes!" Farengar said, pleased, and hurried forward. "I was wondering if you had died after all. Did you find it?"

_If you're going to be like that, then I might have just dropped it down a well by accident_, Brim thought, dryly, but dug in her satchel to produce the stone tablet. Coin was coin, even if it came from a wet-behind-the-ears uppity mage. Farengar took it from her as carefully as if it had been made of glass and hurried it over to the table. He and the hooded woman bent over it and the wizard clapped his hands in excitement.

"This is it! It's a sort of map of all the dragon burials in this area," he crowed, and looked at the woman with a grin. "Your employers should be very pleased, as well."

"Indeed," the hooded figure said, and looked up at Brim again. "It must have taken skill to get this. I'm impressed."

"Aye. That being the case, as to my . . ." Brim started but heard a shout behind her. She turned quickly, her sharp eyes noticing the cloaked woman step back into the shadows to one side, and saw the Jarl's Dunmer swordswoman . . .Irileth, wasn't it? . . . run up.

"Farengar . " the Dunmer panted, trying to catch her breath. "The dragon has attacked the Western Watchtower. The Jarl needs us immediately. You, mercenary. You should come, as well."

"How exciting!" the mage exclaimed practically bouncing with glee as he hurried from behind his desk to fall in behind the swordswoman and Brim scowled. _You're mad if you think I'm going anywhere near that dragon again_, she thought. But she could feel the cloaked figure watching her carefully and she hadn't been paid yet, so she cursed inwardly and turned, jogging after the mage. As she hurried along, she tried to compose a sufficiently polite way to tell the Jarl to give her the bloody payment so she could piss off out of this city before the dragon burnt _it_ to cinders, as well.

Jarl Balgruuf was waiting in a large, open study behind the main hall, along with his steward and several other people, all of whom looked immensely agitated. Feeling agitated herself, Brim waited while Irileth shoved a younger guardsman forward to explain what he had seen. The dragon had come on them unawares, it seemed, and destroyed most of the tower. _Not very watchful, those watchtower guards, then_, she thought, but Irileth was already asking to be sent down there to find out the truth of the matter herself.

"Very well," the Jarl replied. He frowned, concerned, and added, "But remember that this is not a death or glory mission, Irileth. We need to find out what we're dealing with."

"Of course, my lord. I am the soul of discretion," the Dunmer replied, almost gently. Brim's eyes narrowed as she glanced between them, noticing their expressions, the subtle shift in their voices. _Oh, I see_. Well, it wasn't any of her business which of his servants the Jarl was boffing on the side, though the information could be useful later. Brim just wanted her well-earned gold. The Jarl turned back to her before she could find a moment to interject.

"As for you," he said, resuming his lordly tone, "I assume since you have returned that your errand was successful. You have done us a great service. I haven't forgotten your reward. But I'm afraid I have to ask one more thing of you, my friend. Go with Irileth and see about this dragon. You're the only one here who has seen one before and knows what to expect."

"Begging your pardon, m'lord, but I wouldn't know how to fight a dragon if one fell on me," she replied, trying to be tactful. A dragon had already very nearly fallen on her, and she had only barely managed to make it out of that alive, and then only by luck.

"I don't expect you to kill it. We simply need to know what the thing is capable of," the Jarl replied. "Do this, and your reward will be substantially increased."

_And how am I supposed to spend it from inside of a dragon?_ Brim thought, venomously, but pressed her lips together tightly to keep the words from leaking out. Clearly, she was not going to be paid until this was over. Hells, she had worked _hard_ for that gold, she wasn't going to . . . couldn't, really . . . leave Whiterun without it.

"As you wish," she replied, tightly, and the Jarl smiled. Turning on her heel, Brim stalked after the waiting Dunmer, who gave her a hard look before hurrying back through the hall. _Glare all you want, sweetroll. You can have all the honor of dying for Jarl and city and I'll be pleased to relieve you of your pocket-change afterwards._

Night was rapidly descending as Irileth gathered a contingent of guards and sallied forth. Brim watched the skies with more than a little anxiety as she trotted along the western road with the guardsmen. They seemed hesitant as well, but this is what they earned their pay for. Poor fools.

A column of black smoke could barely be made out billowing across the darkening sky and Irileth stopped behind an outcropping of rock as the ruins of the watchtower came into view.

"Shor's bones . . ." one of the guardsmen cursed, gawking. The tower had been almost entirely destroyed, as if a huge hand had snapped it in half and crumbled the pieces all around the landscape. Parts of it were still on fire and Brim wasn't certain that all of the blackened shapes strewn across the ground at the base of the tower were just pieces of debris.

"We need to look for survivors," Irileth said, her crimson eyes scanning the sky critically. "It looks like the dragon's gone, but be careful. It could come back at any time. Spread out."

Reluctantly, Brim did as she was bid, creeping carefully towards the ruins. It was a relief that they appeared to have missed the monster. Maybe she would still have time to get her pay and that bath tonight after all. _Might as well look to business while I'm here_, she thought and hauled herself up the over the broken stones and into the base of the tower to poke around for anything she could pocket that might be worth something.

"No, go back!" a strained male voice cried. Brim looked up in alarm to find herself staring back into a pair of wide, frightened eyes. The guardsman's face was streaked with blood and soot and he flung a hand out at her, though she could see he was badly wounded enough that he probably could not manage to move far from where he was propped against the wall. "It's still around here somewhere!"

As if on cue, a low roar shattered the air outside the tower and Brim felt her heart drop into her stomach and the blood drain from her face in cold fear. _Daedra take me, not again_. The tower quaked dangerously as something huge impacted the ground nearby and she pressed herself back against the wall as several stones fell from above and crashed into the floor.

"Get out of here!" the injured guard screamed at her, and Brim needed no second bidding. She flung herself back through the doorway, crouching and covering her head with her arms as she hit the dirt, seconds before part of the sidewall crumbled inward. The other guards were shouting nearby and she could hear the thrashing of the dragon and feel the massive movement of air from its wings move across her far too close for comfort. Pushing herself back up, she darted for cover behind a larger piece of rubble.

The dragon launched itself skyward again and Brim got her first glance at it. To her surprise, it was not the same one that had attacked at Helgen. That dragon had filled the sky like a black hole in the world itself. This one was smaller, its thorny hide a mottled green. _Bloody hell, there's _two _of these things?_ The beast swooped overhead in a curving arc and sped back towards the tower, a long jet of flame erupting from its mouth to cut a swathe of fire across the ruins. Brim looked around, desperately, but the city was too far away to make a run for it and there was no other cover in sight.

"Arrows bounce right off of that thing!" she heard a guardsman shout, panicked, nearby. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know!" another responded, and Brim felt a sense of dreadful resignation creep over her. She couldn't run. It would just attract attention to herself and, even if she made it to the city, how long before the dragon followed her? There was nowhere unexposed to hide until it was over. _There's only one way out of this_, she thought, grimly, and turned to climb up the jagged chunk of tower she had taken refuge behind. Someone had to put that dragon on the ground somehow, or it would just fly circles around them and roast them all like chestnuts before flying merrily away for seconds. And she could think of only one way to do that.

The dragon had circled high again and was coming in for another flyby attack on the guards below. Brim watched its trajectory carefully, drawing her sword and dagger, as she leapt across a narrow divide between her piece of rubble and the next. If she had the angle right, the cockamamie idea that had just occurred to her would work. If she had it wrong . . .well, there were worse ways to die. _I'm not going to die_, she told herself. _I haven't come this far to let a flying lizard take me down._

The dragon exhaled its flame again, the suck and rush of the downdraft from its wings wafting the fire out across the field, sending the guards fleeing for cover. Brim waited until the absolute last moment, when the dragon was lowest in its shallow dive, and jumped.

With the strange dilation of time that impending death produces, the scene around Brim seemed to slow to a crawl. The horned hide of the dragon filled her vision as its great wing fell, pushing off of the air, the great tendons straining as it turned itself upward again, but in that instant, she knew she had judged correctly. The sharp point of her sword made contact first, punching through the thick, leathery webbing of the wing, followed soon after by her dagger, as she landed. The force of the already lifting wing as it met her body drove the breath from her lungs, but she tightened her grip on her weapons, struggling to hang on. There was a terrible, blood-chilling sound like ripping skin and the world pitched wildly around her. The dragon's roar was deafening in her ears. Her forearms burned across the rough surface of the monster's flesh as she slid at an uncontrolled speed down the back of the wing, her blades raking huge open channels all the way down the length of the webbing as neatly as if they had been sail canvas until she was flung back into space again.

Brim hit the ground on her back and skidding several feet, pain shooting down her spine and into her limbs. It had not been as high a fall as it could have been, though, and she could see that her gamble had had the desired effect. Its wing sundered, the dragon spun sideways through the air and crashed, thrashing, into the ground with a sound like an avalanche. Heaving for breath, Brim rolled onto her belly and pushed herself back up to her feet. Her arms and legs tingled numbly with the shock of the fall, but nothing appeared to be broken. Or, at least she would find out later where the bruises and abrasions and breakages were when the fight-rush wore off. The dragon bellowed its rage as it struggled to right itself, snapping and lashing out with its tail at the guards who were bearing down on it with whoops of victory. _We're not done yet, _she thought, and galvanized her shaky legs back into a sprint.

The guardsmen were already doing a valiant job of hacking at their foe, though as Brim approached, she saw the dragon snatch one in its jaws and throw him like a ragdoll dozens of feet through the air. The creature already looked badly bloodied from the fall, its scales rubbed away in places to reveal raw flesh beneath. Its left wing was in tatters, the bone struts that supported it broken and twisted from the fall. _So, you _can_ be injured_._ And that means you can be killed_.

Screaming like a madwoman, she charged into the fray, ducking the flailing strips of the dragon's ruined wing as she headed for the neck. For an instant, the dragon seemed to hesitate, its large, golden eyes dilating suddenly as it turned its serpentine head to focus solely on her. Taking the sudden advantage, Brim did the first thing that occurred to her, which was to leap astride its neck like a horse and clamped her thighs around its throat. _This is madness_, she thought, clinging desperately as the beast reared and snapped and tried to shake her off. But here she was and so she decided that, if she was going to die, she might as well die with the distinction of being the first woman to ever ride a dragon. _One of your mead-swilling Nord bards had better write me a bleeding song after this. A good one!_

Long years of practice at clinging to gutters and ceiling beams in the course of her work had gifted Brim with both an extraordinary grip and the ability to maintain it in almost any configuration, right side up, upside down, or otherwise. She clenched hard with her thighs as she stabbed down as hard as she could with her blade, feeling the point meet the dragon's skull and slide across the knobby bone. The second attempt, by chance, found the soft spot of the beast's eye. Hot blood spattered across her face and body as she twisted the blade deep into the wound.

"_Dovahkiin! _No_!"_ the monster roared in terrified anguish, its language human though its voice was a guttural growl, shocking Brim so much that she let go and tumbled to the ground. She rolled immediately to keep from being trampled or crushed as the dragon shuddered down the length of its long body and collapsed, its limbs still working frantically to stay upright. She scrambled to her feet and stood, gaping, as a fearsome golden eye fixated on her, its expression panicked by the shock of its own mortality, before its head finally sunk slack-jawed to the ground.

There was an instantaneous rush of air and blinding flash of golden light that surrounded Brim like an explosion. She screamed in fear, but the light seemed to invade her very body as she drew in the breath, pressing inside of her and around her and over her as if she were drowning. Strange, chaotic images and feelings flashed through her brain . . . a rocky, forbidding landscape flying past far beneath her at an incredible speed; the pleasurable stretch of her wings expanding and contracting on airy currents as she rode windward, master of the sky; the terrified faces and screams of men and women as she roared her dominion over them and crushed living flesh with her jaws and the sweep of her great tail. Brim heard her own shriek morph into a roar of exultation and rage to match it as the light faded around her. She stumbled, heaving for breath, twisting as the guardsmen clustered around her. When her eyes lit on the dragon again, its flesh appeared to have melted from its bones and disappeared. Only the intact skeleton and a small, bunched pile of foreign objects where the gut must have been remained.

"You're . . .you're Dragonborn!" one of the men exclaimed. Brim stared at him without understanding. Her head was ringing, her thoughts racing on conflicting tracts. Something inside of her throbbed, as if she had vastly overeaten but the pain and distention were mental rather than physical. A flood of outrage, utter horror, and wrath that felt distinctly alien to her warred for ascendancy over her internal disarray and confusion.

"Dragonborn . . . " several of the other guards murmured in agreement. They stared at her as if they had just witness a terrible miracle.

"Like in the legends," the first guard continued eagerly at Brim's silence, though she could barely listen as she struggled to contain herself, clenching her claws . . .no, no, _hands. _As she clenched her _hands_ into fists. "Like Tiber Septim of old."

"Tiber Septim never killed any dragons," one of the others objected, skeptically, and the first rounded on him scornfully.

"There weren't any dragons then, idiot, they had all gone."

"What do you think, Irileth?" the skeptic said, turning to the Dark Elf for confirmation as she stumbled up. The woman stared at Brim for a long moment, warily, and then shook her head.

"Legends are just that. Legends," the Dunmer decided, finally, and the guards murmured uneasily.

"You don't understand, housecarl. You ain't a Nord."

Irileth's dark lip curled in disgust.

"I've seen things stranger than this. Here's a dead dragon. I definitely understand that. Now we know they can be killed. That's enough for me."

Brim pressed her palms to her temples, the size and texture of her own flesh seeming grossly inappropriate as she closed her eyes tight, gritting her teeth and trying to shut out the argument, both internal and external. Too much was happening for her to process it all at once. There seemed to be too many entirely separate trains of thought going on in her mind, fighting for dominance, and the additional task of keeping up with what the others were saying about her was close to sending her over the edge.

"You should try to Shout," the knowledgeable guard urged her, laying a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off roughly and glared ferociously at him, her lips curling in the beginning of a snarl. He stepped back, meekly. "They say that Dragonborns have a natural talent for the Voice, better than the ancient Nord ancestors. If you can Shout, that confirms it."

Fury welled up suddenly within her and Brim had to hold herself back from leaping on the man and throttling him until she either killed him or exhausted herself. _I don't know what just happened to me and I don't know what in the Mad God's barking celestial asylum you're talking about and I can't even get a word in edgewise in my own skull right now, _ she raged internally. _Shut up, shut up, shut up, all of you! Let me think!_

The undercurrent in her thoughts went silent instantly as her own will reasserted itself with a vengeance. It was as if the thing, whatever it was, had cowered into some deeper internal space. Fully in control once more, Brim's gazed snapped irately around her. The guards were staring at her with a mixture of awe, fear, and fascination. Irileth was watching her with a raised eye, distrustful, yet obviously curious. _Shout_, she thought, feeling her turbid emotions begin to settle again, slightly. She pondered. She had no idea what he meant. Her thoughts washed briefly across all of the damned strange things that had happened to her since coming to Skyrim, counting them off like tallying marks. The dragon attack. The chance discovery of her niece. The strange optical illusion in Bleak Falls Barrow. How _had_ she known that the symbol meant "force" anyway?

_Wait, _Brim thought, backing up a step. When she had first seen it, she had read the symbol as "_fus"_ not "force". But as she thought about it now, she knew unquestioningly that that was exactly what it meant. _Fus _meant "force", though with a deeper connotation, one that Brim could not quite put into words in her own language. The intruder in her mind shifted slightly and she could hear the word pronounced, feel how the shift in her physical and intangible bodies should take place to produce the sound. A prickly, unpleasant sensation began to start up her spine and she turned and walked a few steps away from the others. She stared hard into the darkness, concentrating, poking and probing at the curled, alien knot that seemed stuck inside of her somehow like a particularly irritating fish bone or some sort of malignant pregnancy. _If I'm not mad, if this isn't some local foolishness,_ she told it, _show me_.

"**_Fus!_**_"_ she Shouted and staggered back as the word expelled itself from her throat like a charging beast. Several pieces of stone rubble tumbled away from her along the ground as if thrown, though no one had touched them.

"She did it! That was a Shout!" the guard exclaimed to his astonished comrades. "What did I tell you? She's Dragonborn!"

_Bloody hell_, Brim thought, blinking. _I've swallowed a dragon._

~~0~~

Hunched over his desk, Ulfric Stormcloak awoke with a gasp and a strangled yelp. Cold sweat dampened his forehead and neck and he looked around, breathing heavily. The candle had burned low in its holder and the pot of ink had spilled, darkening one corner of the parchment he had been making notes on. Quickly, he rescued the book he had been reading before he had fallen asleep, clutching it to his chest as he sat back, blinking, in the semi-darkness of his room.

In his dream, he had been back in Helgen, waiting helplessly as his men were lined up to die, while the Imperial soldiers jeered at him. _Not again_, he had thought, nauseated and writhing from inside his dream-trapped state. _Talos help me. I'm doing the best I can. Why do You torment me so?_ It had been the Imperial girl's turn next. He watched her, grinding his teeth, as she was led up to the block. She was tall and straight-backed, her dark hair falling around her shoulders more neatly than it had in reality. No beauty, but still attractive in a way that caught the eye and held it. She had been on the cart with him, but she was not one of his. He had no idea who she was. They had found her in the forest during one of the escapes and had slung her limp body into the last seat available. _They even kill their own without cause_, he thought bitterly.

In a flurry of movement, almost faster than his eye could see, the girl whirled, her bonds snapping as she drew the sword from the captain's sheath and plunged it through the woman's gut. She took out the headsman next and then turned, a broad grin breaking over her aquiline features. Her green eyes met Ulfric's own, pinning him where he stood like cold lances of emerald. There was no malice or even joy in them, but there was something . . . else. Something older and deeper, primitive, and altogether more alarming.

"You've called me, and I've come," she had said, and then stepped back up onto the headsman block. She raised her arms, which grew out into great spreading wings. Her body morphed and swelled, growing a thick shiny coating of bright fiery golden and pure white scales, her head elongating into the serrated muzzle of a dragon. The dragon-woman roared, a terrible sound that seemed as if it would split the very sky, and that had been when he awoke, his heart pounding, his own outcry on his lips.

A crack of thunder, as loud as if the storm was right overhead, boomed outside and Ulfric startled, looking immediately to the windows, though it had not looked like rain today. Even the stones beneath his feet trembled, as if from the blast.

**_DOV-AH-KIIN!_**a chorus of distant voices cried on the wind and Ulfric stood, his mouth opening in humbled awe, as the realization hit him. The Greybeards, Shouting their summons from the Throat of the World. Since Alduin's attack on Helgen, he had prayed and studied and waiting for this moment. He had even entertained the notion that he, the most gifted student of the Voice in a generation, might be the one, that all he needed to do was find a way to awaken the power within himself. But this dream . . . now he understood. This summons was not for him. Another Voice, a True Voice, had come to Skyrim to defeat Alduin in these End Times. _Talos be praised. The Dragonborn has come._

* * *

_Thanks for reading! Super long chapter, but hopefully worth it. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favourited, etc! I do truly appreciate it. :)_


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